Abstract
Ever since the True Love Alliance jointly signed a petition in 2011 to oppose three gender equality education teaching resource manuals published by the Ministry of Education, domestic controversy over gender equality education has continued. The 2018 LGBT education referendum debate saw a formal confrontation between pros and cons. After the referendum, the Ministry of Education revised Article 13 of the Implementation Rules of the Gender Equality Education Law in April 2019. However, the controversy has not ceased. In the review meetings of the two conventions, CEDAW and CRC, various civil society groups still showed different views. International committee members suggested that the government should serve as a communication platform so that both parties can exchange discussions and build consensus, which is in the best interests of children. Therefore, this study attempts to conduct text analysis through civil society reports on the LGBT education referendum and subsequent international conventions, sort out and compare the views of both parties, and then explore the basic assumptions behind the discussions, hoping that this will help both parties better understand each other’s similarities and differences to start a conversation.
Three research questions are as the following: 1. What are the similarities and differences between the pros and cons of the LGBTI education referendum on gender equality education? 2. What are the similarities and differences in the views of civil society on gender equality education (including sexuality education) at the Convention Review Conference? 3. What are the basic educational beliefs revealed by different perspectives? A qualitative research thematic analysis method was adopted. The data include the verbatim transcript of the referendum debate film on LGBT education and the parallel reports of civil society participating in the international review conferences of the ICCPR & ICESCR (3th), CEDAW (4th), and CRC (2th) after the referendum.
The findings are: 1. Common ground: Both advocate that the Ministry of Education should take responsibility and that education should not be based on specific ideology; both claim to support gender equality education, and gender equality education should teach respect, as well as the prevention of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sexual bullying, so that children can learn to accept themselves, and view themselves positively; both propose that qualified teachers is insufficient and their professional knowledge needs to be strengthened; both recognize the importance of sexuality education and affective education. 2. Differences: The differences between the two parties mainly lie in age-appropriateness (including child development), teaching content (such as LGBTI, gender spectrum, sex/gender definition, the goals and contents of sexuality education), and teaching methods (such as student-centered, students’ life experience, recognition, expression and negotiation, discussion of power relations, basic knowledge teaching, character education and life education), teachers qualifications (for example, they should have "gender equality awareness" or "professional knowledge of sexuality education"); and the role of parents. 3. Basic assumptions: One party’s comments are based on the epistemological perspective of social constructionism, believing that there is no so-called "correct and objective" knowledge, ignores biological sex, emphasizes students' rights and the critical multicultural education approach; the other party’s comments are based on the objective epistemology, believing that education should be based on "correct and objective" knowledge, biological perspective is also important in gender quality education, and that children should be protected. In terms of educational methods, sexuality education is considered to be a kind of value education.
To sum up, the perspectives of the two parties are not completely mutually exclusive or opposing, and should be viewed as the "Original proposal" and the "Revised proposal" of gender equality education. However, the two perspectives’ basic assumptions of epistemology and pedagogy are very different. Further in-depth discussion and dialogue are needed to promote gender equality education.