Creating Connections at the Summer Institute 

Jessica Fields is an exceptional resource as a sexuality educator and researcher at San Francisco State University. She is an associate professor in both Sexuality Studies and Sociology, as well as a senior researcher at the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality and the former Interim Director of the Public Research Institute at SFSU. For several years, Professor Fields has also been an invaluable contributor to NSRC's Summer Institute. We got the chance to catch up with Professor Fields, and find out how working at the Summer Institute has enriched her work as a teacher and researcher of sexuality:

I’ve taught for years at the Summer Institute—courses on theory and research methods, workshops on writing in sexuality research, and seminars on race, gender, and young people’s sexual lives. I launched my book, Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality, as part of the Summer Institute in 2008, and in 2009 the Summer Institute hosted a series of interviews with mentors, colleagues, and students about Risky Lessons. The Institute has been one of the most important sources of personal and professional connection in my life.

I’ll share an example here. In 2006, I co-facilitated a pair of workshops for sexuality educators. The workshops focused on bringing social issues into sex education and on supporting sexuality educators in their efforts to influence debates and policies governing sex education. We talked about how teachers might bring concerns with social justice and sexual agency and pleasure to their work, and, over the course of that week, reimagined the possibilities for the sex education classroom. I welcomed each day’s struggles, laughter, and hard work.

One of the educators that week worked in the San Francisco County Jail. Isela González was a long-time HIV educator who cared deeply about the work she did with people of color, women, transgender people, and people living with HIV. She wondered what it would mean to really bring these ideas about justice and agency to the jail, where punishment and restriction rule the day. Isela’s question challenged some of my most basic assumptions about sex education, suggesting there might be institutional limits to what we could ever accomplish, especially with the most disenfranchised groups. Her question also suggested that she was a new ally, a potential partner in my effort to think creatively about sex education.

We went on to design a participatory action research study of HIV education for incarcerated women of color. Over the course of several years, we secured significant research funding, employed students and public health workers, trained incarcerated women in data collection and analysis, traveled to conferences, and published an academic paper. Isela went on to present on incarceration and sexuality at later Summer Institutes. She and I have learned from and with each other for years now, and it all began in a Summer Institute workshop. Those first conversations about education, agency, and pleasure set us on a path that has shaped my professional and personal life, and I couldn’t be more grateful.