Information and communication technologies in sexual socialization and educational strategies to promote sexual and reproductive health in public high schools

Abstract

The researcher is a psychologist with a master in Preventive Medicine in a research-group dedicated to violence against women and a PhD in Social Psychology (doctorate) with an intervention-study in quilombolas territory with young prevention-agents working with HIV/AIDS and racial relations. She has worked for almost two decades as a social psychologist in STI/AIDS prevention programs, governamental and non -governamental, a relevant experience to be brought to the mini teams of schools where the intervention will be carried out articulated with health centers in the territory for access to the resources needed for combined prevention (condoms, contraceptives, testing, post-exposure prophylaxis and in this context of COVID-19 pandemia). It is important to note that, as a result of the political changes and backlash already reported to FAPESP, we reduced the field in Sorocaba and Santos and added two sites in São Paulo, where this PD-fellow will be centrally allocated. She is available to circulate between the sites, as expected in the announcement for this post (see Selection Process, attached document). As noted in the preliminary study, under analysis, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) participate intensively in the socialization and construction of sexuality of young people who reach high school: they facilitate affective-sexual encounters, access to discourses about sexualities and genders. At the same time, they facilitate access to erotic/pornographic content) and to toxic and violent interactions involving cyberbullying (ethnic-racial discrimination, sexual, gender and religious orientation). ICT participate in educational and communication processes are also a source of information, often unreliable; but can be used in psychosocial interventions aimed at promoting sexual and reproductive health, based on scientific evidence, which consider youth culture typical of each school scenario and its programmatic territory. The intervention foresees that comprehensive health promotion and prevention materials will be developed, including using ICT and the use social networks, that will be developed throughout the intervention to be implemented, with the active participation of students, a task led by this PD- fellow. ICT are specially relevant in the COVID-19 context. The objective of this specific PD study within the scope of the thematic project is: to understand the ways in which Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and social networks participate in the socialization for sexuality and for the prevention of STIs/AIDS and the promotion of comprehensive health of high school students in socially vulnerable settings and territories in Santos, Sorocaba and São Paulo. Ethnography anchors the development of the thematic project and of this proposed postdoctoral study, enabling, at the same time, the production of a "dense description" of the scenes and scenarios that the project aims to change in each school and territory and as a result of the implemented intervention. This study will integrate the most qualitative data collection procedures throughout the interventions and workshops (participant observations, individual and/or collective interviews - focus groups) and those that will result in statistical analyzes that will assess the impact of the interventions (based on pre and post questionnaires intervention). Based on previous research experiences using mixed methodologies, the scholarship-fellow will be centrally involved with the co-coordination of ethnography and planned psychosocial interventions, leading the workshops and data collection on the ICT topic, as well its resulting publications. It will collaborate especially in the intersectional analysis of its results, with a focus on race and gender relations that it dominates well, and in the light of the human rights framework that informs the project. (AU)