Learning from and with incarcerated women: Emerging lessons from a participatory action study of sexuality education

This article offers (a) an exploration of the value of participatory action models of both sexuality education and sexuality research and (b) a reflection on the process of offering jail-based sexuality education for women of color vulnerable to systemic social inequalities. In an ongoing participatory action research project in San Francisco County Jail, health educators, a faculty researcher, students, and recently incarcerated women are exploring the role of HIV in the sexual lives of incarcerated women of color. Using ethnographic, interview, and analytic response data from this project and building on critical analyses of race, sexuality, incarceration, and pedagogy, emerging lessons include new understandings of participatory action research in incarcerated settings, of jails as a site of sexuality education, and of the contexts in which women navigate HIV risk.