Inhaltsübersicht

• Development in the work with girls: growth in Eastern Germany
• “Work with girls”: principle of action for educators
• Paradigm shift: from girls’ deficits to their resources
• Tested reality: the integration of boys
• Proportion of migrants has gone down
• New target groups reached
• Subjects for the work with girls: self-defence more important than sexual orientation
• Peer education: a promising approach

 

Development in the work with girls: growth in Eastern Germany

The first investigation into the sex-education work with girls showed that there was a particular period where work with girls was initiated in Western Germany from 1981 to 1996.

In the context of the repeat survey in 1999 only 7% new initiatives in the work with girls were detected.

The situation was completely different in Eastern Germany: only 30 institutions participated in the 1996 survey, but by 1999 this figure had gone up to 77. 56 institutions have been working in this area since 1989, 19 of them only since 1997. It is mainly youth-assistance funding bodies, autonomous facilities for girls and advice centres that have established themselves.

 

“Work with girls”: principle of action for educators

Sexuality is one of many important topics in the work with girls. However, in the years between the surveys an increasing number of concepts and services were developed in other areas, such as career orientation or communication technologies. These areas are increasingly being publicly funded.

With regard to implementation, sex-education work with girls has not remained tied to traditional group work. It has also found a place in the everyday activity of educational institutions. It can take place in the form of confidential one-on-one conversations, spontaneous group discussions or in prepared seminars.

For educators (sex-education) work with girls has developed into a principle of action: they are aware of their role model status, even in unplanned, everyday situations.

 

Paradigm shift: from girls’ deficits to their resources

The underlying concepts of partisan work with girls is something the girls themselves are looking at more. Socio-political questions, criticism of a patriarchal culture and the resulting disadvantages for girls and women are giving way to the view from girls’ specific living situations and their special needs, desires, strengths, weaknesses and longings. This development is true of both Eastern Germany and Western Germany.

The view of the girls’ situation has also changed in the concepts. Instead of the deficits, the girls’ strengths and resources now stand in the foreground.

 

Tested reality: the integration of boys

What still seemed unthinkable at the time of the first study had already become a tested reality in some girl organizations in 1999: the opening up to boys too of work with girls. This “reflexive coeducation”, the purposeful integration of boys, is a particular challenge for girls’ organizations. The experiences, particularly those of staff in advice centres and youth organizations, show however that the supervised integration of boys is an important learning step for the girls. They learn how to shape relationships and have confrontations with members of the other sex. An occupation with the relationship between girls and boys tends to be experienced “in theory” by the employees of girls’ organization, but only rarely in practice.

 

Proportion of migrants has gone down

The church institutions were able to integrate more non-German girls. The proportion of these facilities with 100% Germans was still 80% in 1996.

By 1999 this proportion dropped to 63%. At the same time the proportion of church institutions with fewer than 25% Germans rose from 8% in 1996 to 10% in 1999.

Amongst the non-church institutions on the other hand the proportion of non-German girls dropped between 1996 and 1999. This is true for girls’ organizations as well as for advice centres and youth organizations. Sex-education work with girls thus seems to concentrate more on German girls overall.

The reasons for this development remain open. Certainly patchy knowledge about the girls’ native cultures and an absence of concepts and materials as well as media for sex-education work with migrant girls make the integration process more difficult. In addition experience shows that it is important to win over educators with a migrant background for this work. They profit from a head-start in trust, both in the eyes of the girls as well as those of their parents.

 

New target groups reached

Target groups who until the mid-nineties were not the centre of attention of (sex-education) work with girls include lesbian girls and women as well as girls with disabilities.

It can be observed that since 1996 there has been a growing number of services for lesbian girls, in the form of coming-out groups or social clubs. The equal treatment of people regardless of sexual orientation continues to be a goal. This is an important aspect of sex-education work (with girls).

Girls with disabilities only enter the field of view in work with girls after 1996. Here, individual measures, projects and initiatives were developed in a very short space of time. The work with this clientele requires very highly differentiated didactic approaches, methods, materials and qualified multipliers.

 

Subjects for the work with girls: self-defence more important than sexual orientation

The current survey showed no or only mildly significant differences compared to the 1996 data regarding the assessment of sex-education subjects:

• The subject “lesbian love and sexuality” only increased in significance very slightly.
• The subject of “eating disorders” also did not have an important role overall in work with girls in 1999. In light of rising numbers of girls with eating disorders, it seems to be a sensible idea to include the integration and prevention of eating disorders and binge eating in work with girls.
• The subject of self-defence and self-assertion was classed as important. In contrast the respondents classed the subjects of “masturbation” and “female sexuality”, which were separately surveyed for the first time in 1999, as relatively unimportant. The reasons for this remain open.
  

 

Peer education: a promising approach

Peer education presents itself as a particularly suitable approach for the sex-education work with girls. The experiences made by experts show that peer-education approaches are also successful for work with migrant girls. The task now is to transfer these concepts into general practice. Publications of in-depth concepts as well as the specific training of multipliers seem to be a sensible idea.