‘It's notwhothey are it'swhat they are like’: re‐conceptualising sexuality education's ‘best educator’ debate

Those who teach sexuality education are integral to the success of programmes that positively foster young people as sexual subjects. Knowing what makes an effective educator is therefore crucial for developing and delivering programmes that are successful in this respect. Starting from the premise that effective sexuality education meets the needs and interests of young people, this paper considers who young people think make the best educators and why. Findings are drawn from questionnaire and focus group data. Peer educators were named most frequently in questionnaire findings as the best people to teach about sexuality at school. Reasons for naming them were the same as for selecting other educator categories as ‘best’. Interpreting this finding in conjunction with focus group data suggests participants valued particular educator ‘qualities’ more than ‘who’ the educator was. An argument for problematising the perceived relationship between educator identity and teaching effectiveness in sexuality education is made.