Even though there is public goodwill supporting sex education in the United States, there are concerns that many young people are not receiving the required sex education. It is for this reason that the recently conducted surveys on sex education established that 93% of America’s parents supported the teaching of sex education in middle school whereas 96% supported its teaching in high school (Clayton, Brener & Everett Jones, 2018). On this basis, it is clear that a vast majority of parents collectively support sex education covering topics such as healthy relationships, STDs, sexual orientation, contraception, and puberty (Williams & Jensen, 2016). Across the board, the conducted state, national and local surveys on sex education have established high support from all relevant stakeholders. Despite sex education being widely adopted in the United States, there is a significant gap in sex education students should receive and what they currently receive.
History of Sex Education in the United States
Traditionally, sex education was perceived as an exclusive responsibility of religion and family. However, this view has been deconstructed in the United States following the embracing of divergent views on sex education. In this essence, the aspect of sexual education is viewed comprehensive information regarding sexual health behaviors that are medically accurate. The issue of sex education was first introduced in the United States through the Chamberlain-Khan Act in 1918, mandating soldier education on gonorrhea and syphilis. As a result, the U.S. Department of Children released a report in 1919 suggesting that the introduction of sex education in school curriculum could have played a more active role in protecting American soldiers from STIs. It is for this reason that sex education was introduced in America’s high schools in the 1920s (Clayton, Brener & Everett Jones, 2018). By 1930s, the United States Office of Education had already published different materials concerning the issue of sex education and even the guidelines for training teachers. Such approaches led to significant progress regarding the introduction of sex education in America’s education curriculum.
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As a consequence of such efforts, human sexuality courses were introduced in colleges between the 1930s and 1940s. By 1964, the Sexuality Information and Education Council in the United States (SIECUS) has already been founded, thus providing an appropriate framework for diversifying the issue of sex education in the larger American society. Such efforts yielded desirable outcomes in 1968 when the U.S. Department of Education granted NYU an opportunity to tailor programs that could be used for training teachers on sexual education (Clayton, Brener & Everett Jones, 2018). However, at some point this did not augur well with parents between 1960s and 1970s, especially following the politicization of the whole issue, thus resulting in protests among parents against its introduction in schools. Despite such resistance, the advocates of sex education were vindicated in the 1980s following the emergence of the AID crisis.
The Adolescent Family Life Act was enacted in 1981 and by mid-1990s, every state had a clear-cut mandate for advancing AIDS education. Such significant progress continued during President Bush and Obama administration through increased budgetary allocations aimed at enhancing sex education in the United States (Clayton, Brener & Everett Jones, 2018). By 2011, conducted polls showed by 90% of American parents unanimously supported the introduction of sex education in high schools whereas 75% supported its introduction in middle school. This marked a significant progress in as far as the history of sex education in American society is concerned. By 2014, more than 22 states had mandated sex education while other 11 states had mandated HIV education, thus marking significant progress regarding the issue of sex education in the United States.
Sex Education in Schools
Current America’s sex education programs prioritize teaching student various sexual health competencies such as avoidance of unwanted teenage pregnancies and the appropriate ways for avoiding sexually transmitted diseases. In this regard, the existing sex education programs include abstinence-only, comprehensive sex education and abstinence-plus. Even though the adopted sex education programs championing for abstinence have widely been adopted in the American public schools, the comprehensive sex education program is outlined to be most-effective in helping a majority of young men make better-informed decisions.
The mass adoption of sex education in schools has had multiple benefits. In this case, it has educated students about the importance of embracing healthy relationships and the key aspects of human anatomy that they need to know as they transition from one stage to another. Provision of such a sex education program in schools has helped reduce incidences of unwanted pregnancies in the United States. It has also helped reduce the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, especially among school-going teenagers. In the U.S., a majority of adolescents gain knowledge regarding sex education between grade 6 and 12 (Pugsley, 2018). There are cases where some schools start addressing some sex education topics as early as grade 4 or 5, thus giving the student competency knowledge regarding the subject as they transition from one stage to another.
However, there is a variance in the competence skills learned by students due to the decentralization of decisions regarding sex education curriculum. This primarily alludes to the existing laws governing the content of sex education taught in classes (Williams & Jensen, 2016). Despite this, provision of comprehensive sex education covering topics such as birth control methods, abstinence and the prevention of STIs and HIV/AIDS has been advocated across the board in America’s schools. However, the survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) indicates that there was a decline in the number of schools providing competency information on sexual health education between 2000 and 2014 (Pugsley, 2018). It is for this reason that the Center for Disease Control has identified critical sexual education programs that need to be adopted in the programs taught in middle and high schools.
Generally, there has been a widespread adoption of sexual education in America’s high school, middle school, and even elementary school. In this regard, the statistics by the Center for Disease Control show that 72% of public and private high schools in the United States provided information regarding the prevention of pregnancy in their sex education programs (Williams & Jensen, 2016). Alternatively, 76% of public and private high schools taught on abstinence as the effective way of avoiding HIV, STDs, and pregnancy whereas 61% of public and private schools taught about the efficiency of contraceptives. However, only 35% of public and private schools in the United States taught about the usage of a condom (Blackman, Scotti & Heller, 2016). On average, 4.2 hours was stent by private and public high schools in the United States teaching about the prevention of pregnancy as part of their sex education program.
Amongst the middle schools, the statistics by the Center for Disease Control shows that only 30% of private and public middle schools in the United States teach about sex education in their curriculum. On average, 2.7 hours were spent in America’s public and private middle schools teaching about the prevention of pregnancy as outlined in their sex education programs. Amongst the elementary schools in the United States, sex education is introduced in fifth and sixth grade (Pugsley, 2018). In such cases, the primary focus is usually on physiology, reproductive anatomy, and puberty. In these grades, sex education is commonly referred to as puberty education as a way of preparing children for all changes as they transition to adulthood.
Despite earlier oppositions to the introduction of sex education in the 1960s and 1970s, sex education is presently adopted widely in the United States among the elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. Such tremendous progress has been achieved through the collective efforts of all concerned stakeholders championing for the provision of sex education in America’s education programs. As a result, this has led to the introduction of sex education as early as fifth or sixth grade, thus equipping children with the competency knowledge regarding aspects such as physiology and reproductive anatomy.
References
Blackman, K., Scotti, S., & Heller, E. (2016). State policies on sex education in schools. State Policies on Sex Education in Schools .
Clayton, H. B., Brener, N. D., & Everett Jones, S. (2018). Professional Development on Sexual Health Education Is Associated With Coverage of Sexual Health Topics. Pedagogy in Health Promotion , 4 (2), 115-124.
Pugsley, L. (2018). Focus groups, young people and sex education. In Gender and Qualitative Research (1996) (pp. 126-142). Routledge.
Williams, E. A., & Jensen, R. E. (2016). Conflicted identification in the sex education classroom: Balancing professional values with organizational mandates. Qualitative health research , 26 (11), 1574-1586.
