Objectives of sex education

Sex education is the term used to describe a wide range of concepts related to the human anatomy, the reproductive system, sexual intercourse, emotional attachment, celibacy, and rights and responsibilities. Sexual education is usually provided by school teachers, parents, and community healthcare institutions.

Overview

The concept of sex education is seen differently by different individuals involved in it. Some people focus more on sexuality, or anatomically and psychologically being a man or a woman.

Others view sex education as improving the institution of family by protecting and nurturing the right values. Yet a few others see it as a tool to improve the social, mental, and physical aspects of sexual reproduction.

Sexual education is supposed to cultivate the right kind of attitudes in children when it comes to all aspects of sex, including family planning, fertility, being involved in a relationship, physical sexual pleasure, sexually transmitted diseases, and so on. Sexual education needs to be adapted for children at all levels and made useful and interesting to be successful.

In any case, all expect to agree that some form of sexual education should exist to help plan and prepare for personal conduct and relationships. Other than a school, or a parent, media is also a source of sex education, and so are friends.

When it comes to schools, sex education is sometimes a full class in junior high or high school, whereas sometimes it is part of a biology or phys ed class. There are still schools in the US that provide no sexual education, as it is difficult to decide when to start teaching children about sex as well as which topics to cover at what age.

Opinions of experts are very much divided as to what should be taught as a part of sexual education. Some believe that the problem of teenage pregnancy is too difficult to assess in a classroom, and still others argue that instead of sexual there should be prevention education classes involving a broader community.

Interestingly, those countries that oppose teaching children about sexuality, such as the United Kingdom and the US, have higher rates of unwanted teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents. In other places like Africa, due to the AIDS epidemic, most experts agree that it is vital that some form of sex education are available to young people.

When it comes to the opinions of parents in the US, over 80% believe that there should be a sex education class in both junior high and high school and that it would also make it easier for them to talk to their children about sex at home. Not surprisingly, over 90% of teenagers would want a sex ed class in school while at the same time, they would also like to be able to talk about it at home.

Some of the main objectives of sex education include building positive rather than negative attitudes when it comes to love and sex while at the same time teaching responsible behavior towards self and others. Another important aspect of sex education is making sure young people understand their sexuality as a vital part of being human so that their development into adulthood can go as smoothly and naturally as possible.

There should be an emphasis on the fact that one’s sexuality is not necessarily a private matter, as it has many social, moral, and even legal connotations if it involves endangering another person’s rights. Young people also need to be aware of the importance of reducing sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS, while at the same time having a clear understanding of the concepts such as menstruation, masturbation, and the like. In general, helping children and teenagers develop a positive, responsible, and open mental outlook on sex should be the key element in sexual education.

Scientific Research

The problems of unwanted teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases inspired researchers to look into the effectiveness of various sex education methods and approaches. One meta-analysis compared sex education programs to abstinence-only programs and found that for the women in the abstinence-only programs, the chance of pregnancies did not decrease but rather increased compared to their sex education program counterparts.

There have been studies dealing with prevention programs that started with children as early as 5 years old and found fewer teenage pregnancies among the participants in comparison with children who did not go through such programs. There have also been studies on abstinence-only programs that showed no long-term effect on the sexual conduct of its participants later in life.

Future research should focus on trying to isolate social, psychological, and physical aspects that play a role in increasing the rates of unwanted teenage pregnancies, and also look into the countries with low rates of such pregnancies, such as the Netherlands, to investigate the similarities and differences between the two cultures that may be playing a part in the sexual attitudes and behaviors of their adolescents.

Sexually active teenagers are a matter of serious concern. In the past decades many school-based programs have been designed for the sole purpose of delaying the initiation of sexual activity. There seems to be a growing consensus that schools can play an important role in providing youth with a knowledge base which may allow them to make informed decisions and help them shape a healthy lifestyle.

The present study consisted of a meta-analytic review of the research literature on the effectiveness of school-based sex education programs in the promotion of abstinent behavior implemented in the past 15 years in the US in the wake of the AIDS epidemic. The goals were to: (1) synthesize the effects of controlled school-based sex education interventions on abstinent behavior, (2) examine the variability in effects among studies and (3) explain the variability in effects between studies in terms of selected moderator variables.
The search for school-based sex education interventions resulted in 12 research studies that complied with the criteria to be included in the review and for which effect sizes could be estimated.
The confidence interval for parent participation does not include zero, thus indicating a small but positive effect. Controlling for parental participation appears to translate into homogeneous classes of effect sizes for programs that include parents, but not for those where parents did not participate (QW(9) = 28.94; P = 0.001) meaning that the effect sizes were not homogeneous within this class.
Virginity status of the sample was also a significant predictor of the variability among effect sizes (QB(1) = 3.47;P = 0.06). The average effect size calculated for virgins-only was larger than the one calculated for virgins and non-virgins (d = 0.09 and d = 0.01, respectively). Controlling for virginity status translated into homogeneous classes for virgins and non-virgins although not for the virgins-only class (QW(5) = 27.09; P = 0.000).
The overall mean effect size for abstinent behavior was very small, close to zero. No significant effect was associated to the type of intervention: whether the program was abstinence-oriented or comprehensive—the source of a major controversy in sex education—was not found to be associated to abstinent behavior. Only two moderators—parental participation and percentage of females—appeared to be significant in both univariate tests and the multivariable model.
Interventions appeared to be more effective when geared to groups composed of younger students, predominantly females and those who had not yet initiated sexual activity. The association between gender and effect sizes—which appeared significant both in the univariate and multivariable analyses—should be explored to understand why females seem to be more receptive to the abstinence messages of sex education interventions.

✓ Fact confirmed: The effectiveness of school-based sex education programs in the promotion of abstinent behavior: a meta-analysis Mónica Silva; 01 August 2002