I am sure we all have our own funny stories about sex ed class. But they really aren't so funny when we think about the fact that many of us got our (mis)information about the birds and bees from halted conversations with our parents, from gossiping with our friends, or from reading the bathroom wall.
Despite today's availability of information about sex and abstinence, things haven't gotten much better for adolescents. Ask a kid what "not having sex" means and you'll get a million different answers.
Legislation like the recently introduced REAL Act (The Responsible Education About Life Act) aims to end such misinformation by providing federal funding for comprehensive sex education in schools. (For the last 10 years billions of dollars have gone to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs while zero dollars went to what is known as comprehensive sex education.)
Informing policy initiatives, the actual design of sex education curricula, and activist interventions, is a body of knowledge produced by nonprofits and university based research centers that aims to answer critical questions about sex education.
What should kids know about sex and at what age?
What effect does knowing about sex have on adolescent sexual behavior?
Who is responsible for teaching kids about sex? parents, gym teachers, health teachers?
Are LGBTQ teens being left out of sex ed?
What can we do to prevent teen pregnancy?
What works best in HIV prevention education?
This is an issue that affects everyone, yet because the issue is often cast as being a moral issue it is tempting to avoid it altogether or to even imagine that the debate about sex education is a thing of the past. We encourage you to take a minute to explore some of the research collected here and get a different view on sex ed.
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The BALYHS Project: An Assessment of the Health Care Needs of LGBTTQQI Youth and Their Health Care Services in the San Francisco Bay Area
Contributing Organization(s): Youth In Focus
Publication date: 2008-08-08
| Complete listing and access info | Download
The Bay Area LGBTTQQI -Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Two-Spirited, Queer, Questioning, and Intersex- Youth Health Scan (BALYHS) Project consists of a health care scan of the health care services provided to LGBTTQQI youth in the San Francisco Bay Area. The BALYHS report also includes an assessment of the health care needs of LGBTTQQI youth; this final research report provides practical and low-cost findings and recommendations based on this Youth-Led Action Research project. In the BALYHS report the LGBT youth voice their specific [LGBTQI Health] needs, experiences and ideas to make their health care more accessible. The recommendations are applicable to any clinic in the U.S. as this research points out that there is an enormous lack of and yet high need for Transgender and Queer specific health care services beyond San Francisco. Complete listing and access info » |
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Childbearing by Teens: Links to Welfare Reform
Contributing Organization(s): Urban Institute
Publication date: 1998-08-01
| Complete listing and access info | Download
Teenage pregnancy and childbearing have been a continuing source of concern to health practitioners, educators, the media, politicians, and the public. Teen childbearing is associated with numerous negative outcomes for both the mother and her children and with costs to society -- including welfare costs -- and has been a major focus of welfare reform efforts. Complete listing and access info » |
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Comments Regarding Teen Pregnancy Prevention and Teen Parents Provisions in the Reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant
Contributing Organization(s): Center for Law and Social Policy
Publication date: 2001-11-30
| Complete listing and access info | Download
In this letter, we expand upon the overall comments offered by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) by focusing on some initial ideas for provisions related to teen parents, reducing out-of-wedlock births, and teen pregnancy prevention. We believe that reauthorization presents an opportunity to recognize that teen pregnancy prevention is a vital strategy in addressing non- marital births. It is a "doable" strategy since recent research points to effective program interventions. Reauthorization also permits us to redirect our approach to needy teen parents, which too often has pushed them away; instead, such teens should be engaged in TANF rules and services. Complete listing and access info » |
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Comprehensive Sexuality Education
Contributing Organization(s): Healthy Teen Network
Publication date: 2008-10-01
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Healthy Teen Network recommends and encourages the teaching of developmentally and age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education, as it holds the greatest hope for reducing the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancy among adolescents. Complete listing and access info » |
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Condom Use and Consistency Among Teen Males
Contributing Organization(s): Child Trends
Publication date: 2008-10-30
| Complete listing and access info | Download
This Child Trends study finds that any type of formal sex education is linked with higher levels of condom use at teen males' first sexual experience. However, one in five teen males (ages 15-19) did not receive formal sex education about either abstinence or contraception before having sex for the first time. The study, published in the October 2008 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health and summarized in this fact sheet, examines how multiple dimensions of teen males' lives are associated with condom use and consistency. Among the findings: --Having an older partner or a casual partner is linked to less condom use. Nearly one-fourth of teen males had an older recent partner and more than one-third were in a casual relationship with their first sexual partner. --Older teen males and those in longer relationships are less likely to use condoms. This was true even after controlling for whether their partner used a contraceptive method. --Positive attitudes about using condoms are linked to actual use. Teen males who disagree with the ideas that condoms reduce physical pleasure and that it would be embarrassing to discuss condom use with a new partner have higher levels of condom use and consistency. --Seven in ten teen males reported using a condom at their first and at their most recent sexual experience, but fewer reported using condoms consistently. Just one-half of sexually active teen males reported using a condom consistently with their most recent sexual partner. Complete listing and access info » |
Available for your listening pleasure: a podcast on the issue of adolescents and reproductive health. Stacy Kessler, IssueLab's Collections Assistant, chatted with Laura Lindberg, Senior Research Associate at the Guttmacher Institute about the role of nonprofit research in the debate about comprehensive sex ed and abstinence training.
