ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights how focus group interviews can operate as a means of researching certain sensitive topic area as sex education with young people. It concentrates on the opinions of young people and focuses on what it is they have to say, both about the sex education which they have received and their attitudes to issues relating to teenage sexuality. The chapter demonstrates the ways in which focus groups can be used as a method of qualitative research. It explores that some of those pupils engaged in the discussions may have had 'guilty knowledge' of the sexual history of other members of the group and this may have served to prescribe and delimit the range of debate. The girls in the National Vocational Qualifications group were very different from the A level girls and quite distinct in their self presentation. The students all acknowledged the biological emphasis which is placed on what is taught as sex education.
