Attitudes of Special Education teachers towards sexual education of students with intellectual disabilities: Effects of religiosity and professional experiences

Sexual Education (SexEd) in general is a controversial topic throughout the world. When it comes to sexual education ofpeople with disabilities, the subject becomes even more difficult and sensitive for both caregivers and specialists. In orderto implement a SexEd program for persons with intellectual disabilities, different individual and social factors should beconsidered. Among these factors, attitudes towards the sexuality and sexual education of those who provide it wasidentified as priority. In this respect, the aim of this study was to identify special educational teachers' attitudes towardsteaching sex education in classroom, as well as to establish possible correlations between the attitudes towards teaching,teachers’ knowledge and the way they communicate with their students about sexuality. The correlations between thegeneral attitudes of the teachers, the attitudes towards teaching SexEd and the socio-demographic characteristics of therespondents (gender, age, parental status, professional experience, the self-declared degree of religiosity) were discussed.Interaction effects were identified and analyzed.