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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Fast Facts: Helping Teens Help Themselves - The Role of Supportive Housing
Contributing Organization(s): Healthy Teen Network
Publication date: 2008-10-01
| Complete listing and access info | Download
Despite laudable progress in reducing pregnancy rates and births to teens, the United States still has the highest teen birth rate among Western industrialized countries. The rates of teen pregnancy within the child welfare system are of particular concern, as young women in foster care are 2.5 times more likely than those not in foster care to have been pregnant by age 19. Complete listing and access info » |
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Fast Facts: Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs of Young Men
Contributing Organization(s): Healthy Teen Network
Publication date: 2008-10-01
| Complete listing and access info | Download
Historically, the sexual and reproductive health needs of young men have taken a back seat to those of women. Healthy Teen Network believes that both men and women need discreet and age-appropriate sexual and reproductive health education in order to reduce unplanned pregnancies, STIs, and to create stronger families. Complete listing and access info » |
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Fast Facts: Supporting Young Male Involvement in Pregnancy Prevention & Parenting
Contributing Organization(s): Healthy Teen Network
Publication date: 2008-10-01
| Complete listing and access info | Download
The latest in Healthy Teen Network's series of Fast Facts, this fact sheet explores the benefits of targeting boys and young men specifically in order to reduce teen pregnancy and early, unintended fatherhood and to promote the development of positive relationships between young fathers and their children. Complete listing and access info » |
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Fast Facts: The Impact of Early Abuse on Male Sexual and Reproductive Health
Contributing Organization(s): Healthy Teen Network
Publication date: 2008-10-01
| Complete listing and access info | Download
The relationship between childhood maltreatment, interpersonal, and family violence and increased rates of engaging in risky sexual behaviors later in life are well established, however most research focuses on female survivors while male victimization remains less studied and less understood. Nearly one third of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives. However, in the absence of societal recognition that males are victims of abuse, boys and men who experience abuse often remain silent - a silence which must be broken in order to prevent their development of adverse and health-compromising sexual and reproductive behaviors, as well as end the cycle of interpersonal violence. Complete listing and access info » |
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Fast Facts: The Unique Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) Youth
Contributing Organization(s): Healthy Teen Network
Publication date: 2008-10-01
| Complete listing and access info | Download
Data from 1990 through 2002 indicates that approximately 5% of American adolescents (ages 13-18) identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ).1 Sexual orientation is often misinterpreted as synonymous with sexual behavior and has thus allowed educators, health care providers, and even parents to leave LGBTQ youth misinformed and unaware of important sexual and reproductive health issues. While some gains have been made regarding knowledge and attitudes about LGBTQ youth, there remain many disparities in access to both education and services that adversely affect the health and well-being of these youth. 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.
