Implementing School-Based Programs:  Rationale   
HIV Home  | return to Rationale | EMC Home

Three recent studies continue to inform debates on sexuality education.

u     One recent study titled "Sex Education in America: A View from Inside the Nation's Classrooms" was conducted and published by The Kaiser Family Foundation. It found significant gaps between what parents say they want to be taught and what schools actually deliver. According to this study, a majority of parents want their children to receive more sexual health information. They want their children to learn about abstinence as well as about issues such as how to use and where to get birth control (84 percent), abortion (79 percent), and sexual orientation (76 percent). These gaps can be attributed in large part to federal programs that mandate abstinence-only-until-marriage sexuality education in the states.

u     Another study titled "Changing Emphases in Sexuality Education in U.S. Public Secondary Schools, 1998-1999" was conducted by The Alan Guttmacher Institute and published in its Family Planning Perspectives journal. It revealed large gaps between teachers' recommendations for sexual health lessons and what is actually taught in the classroom. It indicated that the vast majority of teachers believe that sexuality education courses should instruct students about where to go for birth control (89 percent), abortion (84-89 percent), and sexual orientation (78 percent). The study found, however, that instruction in all grades is much less likely to include these topics than was the case approximately 10 years ago. In 1999, 23 percent of surveyed teachers taught abstinence as the only way of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) as compared with two percent in 1988.

u     A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) study titled "No Time to Lose: Getting More From HIV Prevention" investigated abstinence-only programs' ability to provide youth with the knowledge they need to protect themselves from HIV and other STDs. Researchers noted that comprehensive sexuality education programs can be effective in reducing high-risk behavior and do not increase sexual activity while at the same time noting that there is insufficient evidence to support abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. As a result of the study, IOM's Committee on HIV Prevention Strategies in the United States recommends that that all federal, state, and local policymakers eliminate requirements that public funds be used for abstinence-only-until-marriage education. Instead, the Committee urges state and local school districts to implement and continue to support age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education and condom availability programs in schools.

For more information, contact The Alan Guttmacher Institute www.agi-usa.org,

212/248-1111; The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation www.kff.org, 202/347-5270; or the Institute of Medicine at www.iom.edu, 202/334-3300.