August 2002

Sexuality Education in Schools

Current statistics indicate that almost 50 percent of adolescents have engaged in sexual intercourse by age 17. This has resulted in 1 million pregnancies and 3 million sexually transmitted disease (STD) infections a year.

Effective school-based sexuality education programs have the potential to reduce adolescent pregnancy rates and sexually transmitted disease infection, and delay the initiation of sexual intercourse among youth. Despite the fact that a majority of adults believe that sexuality education should be taught in the schools, it is nevertheless a topic that stirs up controversy–particularly on the effectiveness of abstinence education.

Abstinence-only programs focus on abstinence from sexual intercourse until marriage by teaching resistance skills and the benefits of a monogamous relationship. These programs only discuss contraceptive methods with regards to their failure rate.

Abstinence-plus programs promote the message of abstinence in addition to providing information on birth control and STD prevention.

Advocates of abstinence-only sexuality education argue that providing youth with information on contraception promotes sexual activity. Abstinence-plus advocates dispute this position and suggest that by failing to provide information on birth control, adolescents who become sexually active will engage in intercourse without the proper skills to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs.

A review of 16 abstinence-plus program evaluations revealed that these programs did not accelerate the onset of intercourse or increase the frequency of intercourse. In fact, some of these programs significantly delayed the onset of intercourse, decreased the frequency of sexual intercourse, and/or decreased the number of sexual partners.

A smaller number of abstinence-only programs have been evaluated. Preliminary evidence indicates that these programs have failed to significantly delay the onset of intercourse.

Sexuality Education: What Works

There are several common characteristics of successful sexuality education programs.

• 1. Focus on a small number of behavioral goals. Effective programs selected a small number of behavioral goals to focus on, such as delayed onset of intercourse or use of contraception when engaging in intercourse. These behaviors were targeted rather than issues such as parenthood or gender roles.
• 2. Appropriate for age, sexual experience and culture. Successful programs consider the characteristics of their particular class. For example, seniors in high school face different pressures and considerably different levels of experience than eighth graders.
• 3. Sufficient time is allocated. Successful programs last 14 hours or more and encourage small group discussions.
• 4. Active participation through multiple teaching methods. Students personalize material through games, role-playing, brainstorming and small group discussions.
• 5. Accurate information. Youth are provided with basic information to enable them with the ability to make informed decisions and reduce risk.
• 6. Social pressures are addressed. Activities address peer norms and situations that lead to sex.
• 7. Modeling of appropriate behavior. Successful programs allow youth an opportunity to witness and model communication, negotiation and refusal skills.
• 8. Trained educators. Educators train between six hours and three days to prepare and discuss teaching strategies for successful programs.

For More Information

Good websites regarding sexuality education are:

• Bridge for Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting and Sexuality: http://www.nnh.org/bapps/bapps1.htm–research, resources, curriculum development and evaluation tools to assist individual, community and state leaders in the areas of adolescent pregnancy, parenting and sexuality.
• Sociometrics Program Archives: http://www.socio.com/program.htm–effective prevention programs.For a list of the references for this issue of Ups & Downs, contact Janet Fox, jfox1@unl.edu.

Resources

Resources for this month's Ups & Downs of Adolescents are:

• Allan Guttenmacher Institute. (1998) Facts in Brief: Teen Sex and Pregnancy http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/fb_teen_sex.html
• CDC (1998). Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 47.
• Hart, P.D. (1999) Teaching Sex Education in Public Elementary Schools. P. Hart Research Associates Inc.
• Kirby and Coyle (1997). School-based programs to reduce sexual risk taking behavior. Children and Youth Services Review, 19(5/6), 415-436.

This issue of Ups & Downs was contributed by Melina Bersamin, Ph.D., Youth Development Specialist, Army/USDA Youth Development Project.

Ups & Downs is edited by Gary Heusel, State 4-H Program Leader, 4-H Youth Development, University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension.