Over the last two decades of the 20th century, young Portuguese people have grown up within a context of profound changes in terms of their sexual socialization, that is, the set of formal and informal learnings of the issues related with sexuality. On the one hand, and within a context of liberalization of customs, the media, namely that which is more specifically directed at young people and TV, are increasingly filled with messages and themes of a sexual nature. On the other hand, the actual families, and in a process of social change and reflexivity, stopped being able to "not speak" on topics of a sexual nature. Parents and children are confronted, within their family scene, with the messages on sexuality that other actors (media, friends) transport to this communication context and, as a result, we can also assume that the family socialization contexts have also changed. Also, on the other hand, the State has integrated sexuality in its health, education and youth policies, pressured from emerging problems related with this domain, among which the most prominent was, without a doubt, AIDS (even more than teenage pregnancy). More frequently, young people were able to attend information/education actions carried out by professionals, be it within the context of the classroom or in other contexts of formal learning. As a result of this process, young people themselves interact in different ways. Tradition is not what it used to be and, in particular, the relations between boys and girls went through profound changes. In other words, important changes in the socialization between peers may have taken place.

These changes have been observed in some of the studies about young people that have been conducted, namely by the IED (1983-85) and by the ICS (1997). The ME, the APF and other institutions involved in sexual education programmes for young people are frequently questioned on the progress of sexual education at schools. In answer to this question - that is, the scope of the change that has been attained - two types of answers normally emerge: on the one hand, positions that think that young people are sufficiently informed and that, therefore, sexual education at school is not necessary; on the other hand, positions that point in the opposite direction, that is, that nothing or very little has changed, that schools do not provide sexual education and, therefore, that the majority of young Portuguese people do not have an adequate sexual education. Although some studies have been conducted about the specific knowledge of young people - namely those that were part of the sexual education experimental project conducted between 1995-98, there is no well-founded and rigorous knowledge on this matter. This information gap is rooted in a real problem: the difficulty that the actual schools have in having more or less exact information of what goes on inside their schools.

The alternative is to understand the sexual education situation through its receivers, namely the young people that are finishing basic or secondary education.

In methodological terms, the project will include the following phases:

- A prior assessment will be carried out of instruments that already exist and that can be applied in the study.

- Two questionnaires will be elaborated and pre-tested to collect the abovementioned data.

- Two structured and quota samples will be constituted, representing young people that are finishing the 9th year of schooling and young people that are finishing the 12th year of schooling, from the whole national territory. The two samples are justified, on the one hand, by including young people at different stages of development, to avoid memory distortions, and on the other hand due to the school dropout that is observed in the transition from basic education to secondary education.

- The questionnaires will be applied through the contact network of the APF and with the support of the CCPES, after the respective authorizations have been attained.

- The information will be handled via computer and with the adequate statistical procedures, with the respective reports being subsequently elaborated.