ABSTRACT
In NFE studies, gender issues have often been approached from the perspective of empowering women in the context of a development project, and many remarkable examples in which the status of women improved through their own educational activities were analyzed in these studies. To this day, such activities empower women struggling against gender role stereotyping and support them in terms of having control over matters related to their sexuality. On the other hand, issues on sexuality and sexual diversity in educational settings were not discussed in a detailed manner in previous NFE studies. Actually, sexual minorities have had to organize their own communities and educational activities to nurture their identities because they are not given much in terms of resources for developing a positive perspective of themselves in formal education. The theoretical struggle concerning gender equality and sexual diversity in education raises major questions regarding educational research. In this chapter, the issues of teaching gender and sexual subjects in formal education as well as how educational activities for gender and sexual subjects have developed outside of the formal education system are outlined to create a relevant backdrop in which a discussion of NFE studies can be made.
