Stanislava Mandzáková: The quality of sexual and partnership life of persons with severe intellectual disabilities. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita v Prešove, 2011. ISBN 978-80-555-0455-1.
The scholarly monograph by Stanislava Mandzáková is devoted to a topic that carries various evaluative connotations in our cultural context and is one of the peripheral themes even within the highly taboo subject of sexuality in Slovakia. The author therefore took on a difficult task not only at a theoretical level, but also provides research data in this area.
The monograph is divided into six chapters. The author gradually defines the basic theoretical premises of sexuality in people with severe intellectual disabilities and then presents qualitative and quantitative results of her own research, which focuses on identifying and analyzing some aspects of quality of life for people with severe intellectual disabilities in the area of sexuality and intimate relationships, as well as describing factors that may affect the sexuality and sexual education of these people.
In the monograph, the author does not deal only with sexual aspects that are “less problematic,” but she also does not avoid analysing forms of sexual behavior among people with severe intellectual disabilities that encounter various ethical, psychological, social, and other barriers. The author also succeeded in summarizing and linking various scientific—both theoretical and research—data with the foundations of sexuality education, taking into account the specifics of the target group as well as the conditions under which sexuality education is carried out.
In her research, the author used not only quantitative but also qualitative methods, and the data collected are not limited to quantitative findings alone; she also presents a substantial amount of qualitatively obtained material, which was painstakingly and time-consumingly collected and offers further room for analysis in the future.
The recommendations formulated at the levels of theory, methodology, and practice genuinely derive from research findings and are grounded in the real-life conditions of clients with severe intellectual disabilities. They can serve as a basis for creating conditions in the field of sexuality that aim to improve the quality of life of these people, and can help professionals orient themselves in many problematic questions related to sexuality, thereby contributing overall to effective and friendly sexuality education for people with intellectual disabilities.
Monograph author: PaedDr. Stanislava Mandzáková, PhD. She works at the Department of Special Pedagogy of the Faculty of Education at Prešovská univerzita v Prešove. In her scientific research, publishing, and lecturing work, she focuses on the topic of communication between teachers and students with intellectual disabilities, issues of sexuality and intimate relationships of people with disabilities, and inclusive education of people with disabilities. She is the author of foreign and domestic scholarly monographs, university textbooks, university teaching texts, and many scientific and professional studies published by domestic and foreign publishers. She is the editor of edited volumes from international scientific conferences and the principal investigator of scientific projects.
Reviewer: doc. PhDr. Dagmar Marková, PhD. She works at the Faculty of Philosophy of Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre, where she teaches sexual education, social psychology, and is a lecturer for socio-psychological trainings. She has completed long-term experiential training in psychodynamic psychotherapy. She participates in the preparation and delivery of workshops for teachers of sexual education. She is the scientific and organizational guarantor of the international scientific conference “Sexualities.” She has published the scholarly monographs “Pre-marital sexuality in the contexts of sexual diversity and variability,” “On sexuality, sexual morality and contemporary partnerships,” “Ethics in Adlerian theory,” among others, and is the author of many other foreign and domestic scholarly publications. Her long-term research work focuses on the social aspects of sexuality, sexuality education, and gender. She is a researcher of international and domestic scientific projects and focuses on studies of sexual biographies, sexual lifestyles, discourses in sexuality and sexuality education, and constructions of sexual morality.