ATTITUDES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS TOWARDS THE TOPICS OF SEXUALITY EDUCATION

Focus of the article is on attitudes of primary school teachers towards the topics of sexuality education. The sample consists of 123 teachers from across the Czech Republic. We used 16 item attitude scale evaluated by respondents on scale 1 to 6 (1 = Do not agree, 6 = Agree), which we later analysed in order to find general factors. Exploratory factor analysis showed 2 existing factors, which can together explain 66% of the variance. First factor ACCEPTABLE COMPETENCES includes items most of the teachers agreed on as important for pupil at the end of primary school. These items talk about relationships, biological basis of sexuality and except one do not include the word "sex" or its derivatives. Second factor LESS ACCEPTABLE COMPETENCES includes items most of the teachers were reluctant to agree on. In these items the word sex of sexuality was explicit. We conclude that teachers may consider these topics as premature for primary school pupils. We have not found any differences between teachers at religious and non-religious schools, neither between teacher that did received sexuality education training and those who did not receive any.