This document encourages parents to get involved in schools and lists out the benefits of getting involved and how and why parents should get involved.
This document is for parents, school administrators that want more parents to get involved and youth who want their parents to get involved or already have parents who are involved.
The Future of Sex Education’s mission is to promote the institutionalization of comprehensive sexuality education in public schools. One of their most important accomplishments is the new National Sexuality Education Standards to provide clear, consistent and straightforward guidance on the essential minimum core content for sexuality education. Click here to download the National Sexuality Education Standards as a free handy PDF document.
FoSE has also published other useful resources, including a Public Education Primer, School Health Primer (coming soon), a Glossary of Education Terms, and The Future of Sex Education: A Strategic Framework.
Visit the Future of Sex Education webpage by clicking here.
This article, written by Brigid McKeon (Advocates for Youth) provides an overview of the effectiveness and characteristics of comprehensive sex education and the dangers of abstinence-only programs .
By age 18, 70% of U.S. females and 62% of U.S. males have initiated vaginal sex. Adolescents have a fundamental human right to comprehensive and accurate sexual health information in order to make healthy decisions about sex and healthy sexual behaviors.
The article provides statistics and data supporting several points–
The fact sheet also includes characteristics of effective sex education as well as medical and public health recommendations to support comprehensive sex education.
This research takes a look at federal spending on abstinence programs that are proven ineffective. Statistics that compare the effectiveness of abstinence only programs with comprehensive sex education programs show that the latter is greater and that abstinence programs have no viewable effect on teens reducing sexual activity and/or using safety measures if they do engage in such acts.
In addition to the information regarding the research done on abstinence programs, the article also includes information regarding the success and need for comprehensive sex education. According to studies completed, as listed in the article, comprehensive sex education works to reduce teen sexual behavior and encourages using safety measures.
Beyond the results, the article also provides the statistics and information as to why it is so crucial for comprehensive sex education programs.
Citation: Advocates for Youth (2009). Comprehensive Sex Education: Research and Results.
Abstinence-only education policies and programs have recently been the subject of increasing number of reviews and critiques in the U.S. public health and social science research communities. The authors of this article first present and discuss a case study of one U.S.-based human rights organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW) that used a set of traditional human rights methods to investigate the health and rights impacts of recent sexuality education policies in the US. (Texas)* and in Uganda**.
The authors believe that rights-based analyses can facilitate the development of new coalitions of policy advocates who can use international human rights as a common standard to critique U.S. policies. From their analyses of the HRW case studies, the authors present some key principles of human rights and demonstrate their potential use to U.S. advocates. For example, international human rights law states that every person, including every child, “enjoys a fundamental right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds […]” which supports the fundamental right of adolescents to sexual health information. (Miller et al. 39). Based on this premise, HRW argues that abstinence-only programs violate these rights to education and information and denies young people their choice to protect their right to health.
The authors hope that by engaging with human rights-based claims and human rights-oriented fact finding, the debate regarding sexuality education can shift towards comprehensive sexuality education.
* The Texas case study– Ignorance Only: HUV/AIDS, Human Rights and Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Programs in the United States. Texas: A Case Study< ** The Uganda case study– The Less They Know, the Better: Abstinence-only AIDS Program in Uganda
Citation: Miller, A. M., & Schleifer, R. A. (2008). Through The Looking Glass: Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs And Their Impact On Adolescent Human Rights.Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of NSRC, 5(3), 28-43.
There has been an ongoing debate about the effectiveness of abstinence-only versus comprehensive sex education and the impacts these two programs have on adolescent sexual health and behaviors. Over the past 15 years, many researchers have studied the impact of abstinence programs on adolescents’ sexual knowledge, behaviors, and intentions but Dr. Kirby considers these research studies poorly designed and not objective. By reviewing and evaluating both abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education programs, Dr. Kirby hopes to come clearer conclusions as to which program is most effective.
Dr. Kirby rigorously reviewed and evaluated 56 studies that assessed the impact of such curricula (8 that evaluated 9 abstinence programs and 48 that evaluated comprehensive programs) and studied whether these caused positive or negative changes to adolescents’ behaviors.
Dr. Kirby’s study results indicated that most abstinence programs did not delay initiation of sex and only 3 of 9 programs had any significant positive effects on any sexual behavior. On the other hand, about two thirds of comprehensive programs showed strong evidence that they positively affected young people’s sexual behavior, including both delaying initiation of sex and increasing condom and contraceptive use among important groups of youth.
Dr. Kirby concludes that:
Citation: Kirby, D. B. (2008). The Impact Of Abstinence And Comprehensive Sex And STD/HIV Education Programs On Adolescent Sexual Behavior. Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of NSRC, 5(3), 18-27.
The article first presents a brief history of the rise of abstinence-only programs that were first authorized under the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA) in 1981. The article also describes post-1996 Title V funding and the requirements of the “eight-point definition” that teachers had to adopt when teaching sex education if their state received funding.
The article also talks about the increased criticisms that researchers and leading medical professional organizations expressed towards abstinence-only programs in the early 2000’s. These criticisms were greatly supported by the results from a evaluative research study* mandated by the Congress and conducted by Mathematica Policy Research. The study found no statistically significant beneficial impact on young people’s sexual behaviors after they attended abstinence-only sex education programs.
Recently, sex education has started to veer away from abstinence-only education. In 2007, Congress rejected the Bush administration’s recommendation to increase funding for abstinence-only education programs and President Obama started his presidency in favor of “comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods.” Advocates for comprehensive approaches are looking towards the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act that will authorize at least $50 million annually for 5 years to support state programs that operate under an eight-point definition of “responsible education” and have flexibility in terms of curriculum development. Lastly, the article also examines the the terms, “medical accuracy” in regards to sex education.
Citation: Boonstra, H. D. (2009). Advocates Call for a New Approach After the Era of ‘Abstinence-Only’ Sex Education. Guttmacher Policy Review, 12(1).
* Trenholm, C., Devaney, B., Fortson, K., Quay, L., Wheeler, J., & Clark, M. (2007). Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs. Mathematica Policy Research Inc.
Link to “Advocates Call for a New Approach After the Era of ‘Abstinence-Only’ Sex Education.“
This study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health replicates and further expands on previous results regarding views about school-based sexual health education. There has been much controversy about school-based sexual health education because of the mounting evidence of the effectiveness of comprehensive-sex education.
Data was obtained by conducting phone interviews with parents of school-age children in Minnesota regarding general sexuality education, the grade level at which it should be taught, and attitudes toward sexuality education.
The following results were found:
Citation:
Eisenberg, M., Bernat, D., Bearinger, L. and Resnick, M. 2007. Support for Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Perspectives from Parents of School-Age Youth. Journal of Adolescent Health. 42:4. 352-359.
Sexual Health Toolkit 