Translating sex culture: Transnational sex education and the U.S.-Swedish relationship, 1910s–1960s

“Translating Sex Culture: Transnational Sex Education and the U.S.-Swedish Relationship, 1910s–1960s” traces the history of American-Swedish sex education relations; the exchange, modification, and reception of sex instruction material; and the opponents of the subject who connected sex education to larger cultural issues. I demonstrate that from the 1910s–1960s, the establishment and growth of American sex education resulted from international collaboration, with special attention paid to Swedish sex education cultures and their integration into the American landscape. In the 1910s–1930s American sex education organizations and filmmakers crafted sex instruction films, pamphlets, and lectures and exported them across the globe. Swedish critics and physicians responded positively to American sex education cultures in Sweden. After World War II, however, American organizations imported Swedish ideas into the American landscape. Thus, Swedish sex education culture influenced American sex education and sexuality culture, shaping how countless citizens thought about sex in the post-World War II era. Conservative activists in the 1950s–1960s turned their ire about school sex education towards Sweden, contending that the American sex education culture had become too much like the Swedish system. This controversy stemmed from larger Cold War geopolitics and provoked a conservative cultural backlash against sex education. More broadly, this dissertation demonstrates that historians can no longer tell the history of sex education without examining the transnational relationship, as American sex education has never been divorced from outside perspectives.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2021

Author dc:creator

• Ghanoui, Saniya Lee

Contributors dc:contributor

• Reagan, Leslie J
• Hogarth, Rana
• Oberdeck, Kathryn J.
• Turnock, Julie
• Stenport, Anna

• sex education
• history of sexuality
• American-Swedish relations
• film
• U.S. history
• transnational history

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2021 Saniya Ghanoui

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110819

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/110819