Sex and relationship education: bridging the gap between research and practice

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to briefly outline the current debate on the delivery of sex education in the UK. The paper presents a brief summary of the recently published literature and details how the research papers in this special issue add to the current body of evidence. Design/methodology/approach - This special issue introduces five new articles, including both original studies and reviews of the current literature. In response to a call for papers, five abstracts were selected and each author or group of authors invited to submit a fully developed paper, which was then subjected to blind peer review by two independent experts. Findings - The brief summary of the recently published literature details how the research papers in this special issue add to the current body of evidence. Originality/value - The dissemination of research evidence helps to ensure that practice is continually informed by emerging evidence and it is hoped that the publication of this special issue may contribute to this process.