You live, you learn, you grow

I don't think I've ever read so much about sex and sexual education in my entire lifetime as I have over the past few weeks (it was especially bad because I was also taking a Child Development, and a Human Sexuality and Its Problems class... yikes). We've talked about a lot of things in this space, and I kind of wanted to sum it all up, before we all go our separate ways (I'm getting all misty...I'm going to blame it on exams). Not only did I want to sum it up, but I always wanted to talk about one last thing. 

I tell my mom often (I'm sure she's sick of hearing it) that, when I look back on my first year of university, I feel like I'm looking back at the life of another person. And in some way, I don't doubt that that is true. As you live and experience, you change, you settle into yourself, and you become sure in the identity that you have. I truly believe that identity is built over time, and that school, and the education provided there, are crucial in helping us build that identity. But if we give them nothing with which they can identify during their schooling time, where does that leave them? Settling into yourself begins in adolescents, but if you are not offered a model to "settle into", there can be some serious mental health repercussions. 

In the case of sexual education, we have talked about the need to increase teenage awareness, provide them with more information, and provide a more holistic approach to sexual education. However, all of this has assumed the presentation of information from a heterosexual point of view. What about other sexual orientations? I find that a topic today is diversity and equality in the classroom, and attempting to create a classroom environment that is equally advantageous to all. How many of you have talked about sex from the perspective of a homosexual man? A lesbian woman? How many people have talked about transsexualism, and gender identity disorder in their classrooms? I'm going to guess not many. However, we are ostracizing a minority in the classroom, and by not talking about it, we tacitly condemn it. Bay-Cheng (2003) really hit the nail on the head when she said: "To accept one single way of being as natural is to privilege it and imbue it with a sort of correctness" (p.67). By only acknowledging the heterosexual perspective, we are implying that some of the youth in our classrooms are deviant, and wrong. What does this do to their identity? Their self-esteem? Their mental health? It certainly isn't good, whatever it is. I appreciate how controversial this would be to implement right now, and how teachers may feel unprepared to discuss these kinds of things in their classes. It all boils down to better pre-service teacher education, something we have touched on before.

Recently, there has been a trend of videos that have been propelling the message "it gets better" to give homosexual youth some hope, and provide support in a difficult stage of their lives. Rick Mercer took it another step further in one of his rants, saying something to the effect of "it has to get better RIGHT NOW". And I agree. We have talked about how saying the word "sex" does not cause kids to go out and do it, and I think a similar train of though can be applied to homosexuality. It is important to realize that there may be homosexual youth in the classroom, and by including talk about homosexuality in sexual education programs may help these kids to create their own identities, and not feel like they have to change who they are to fit into the norm that the school dictates is correct. 

In class, we learned about the ideas of Kevin Kumashiro (2008), who talked at length about a phenomenon called "anti-oppressive education". Essentially, he was saying that we cannot talk about emotional issues like slavery, oppression, and discrimination in an object manner. There is going to be some sort of learning crisis that happens amongst the majority students, who will be faced with their own involvement in discrimination and oppression on a day to day basis. Kumashiro (2008) says that this is necessary, even favourable. The role of the instructor at this point is to provide a space where the class can work through this crisis together; actively working together to raise awareness, and to fix the problem that has been presented. I believe that this framework could be brought to the sexual education classroom, i.e. talking about homosexuality, talking about the offensiveness of using the word "gay" as slang, etc. Multiple perspectives should be included everywhere, not just in a history class.

So, to finish up, what have we learned in this space? I think it can be summed up in the following points:

• The word "sex" is not contagious: talking about it will not encourage youth to do it
• Parents and youth alike are in favour of a more comprehensive program, which talks about contraception and STD's as well as abstinence 
• Youth want more information, and they want it from their parents (I know! This finding was even replicated!)
• We need to provide a more holistic program, which not only includes the physical aspects of sex, but the emotional and the relational aspects as well
• Teachers are very poorly trained in how to teach sexual education, and therefore, better programs should be implemented to help them
• Starting earlier is a good idea: we need to talk about things BEFORE they happen

Together, we have learned that our sexual education programs are in serious need of reform. However, these reforms are not unrealistic. It could and can happen. As someone who desperately wants to be a teacher someday (if someone will take me, crossing my fingers SO hard), I cannot wait to try and make some changes in the way sexual education is taught. Parents also have a huge impact in their kids lives, and it has been seen more than once that they wish their parents had talked to them more. Remember parents, if you assume that your child doesn't want to talk about it, they are simultaneously assuming that you don't care enough to talk about it. Teenagers want to know, and we have a responsibility to make sure that they have all the tools they need to act responsibly, to be proactive, and to be mentally healthy. 

Thank you all for tuning into what has been my favourite assignment of my university career. I hope you have all learned something. I know I have. Happy Holidays to all!!!


References (new)

Kumashiro, K., (2008), Teaching and Learning Through Desire, Crisis, and Difference: Perverted Reflections on Anti-oppresive Education, In J. Entin, R.C Rosen, L. Vogt, (Eds.), Controversies in the classroom: A radical teacher reader, New York, New York: Teachers College Press. p. 113-125.

What we wish we would have known 2.0: Real People Speak

I am a curious person, and I've always been interested in knowing what others think about the things I'm thinking about (it is no wonder I love psychology so much). When I read the title of this article, I immediately thought about the things that I wish I would have known, which got me wondering if other people thought the same thing. So I decided to ask.


Disclaimer: This sample was made purely out of convenience, the question asked was very broad, and there is absolutely no scientific merit to anything I'm about to report. (just in case someone important reads this.... you never know...)


Now, don't misunderstand me, I am not implying that the teenagers in the study we just reviewed were not "real people". But when you read studies, you always wonder who those people are, if they are like you, where they come from etc. So I asked people I knew personally, just to see if there was any kind of correlation between the two. In hindsight, I probably should have asked the question AFTER I read the article, and then I would have actually been able to word it in a way that I might have gotten similar responses. However, in the interst of human curiousity, and the fact that I promised a friend that she could have a cool, fake name on my blog, I'm going to report them anyways. 


I asked the following question to a few select friends via a private Facebook  message:


"What do you wish you would have known? The article is about what you wish you would have known before sexual and romantic relationships, but feel free to share anything you wish you would have known." 


This is what I got back:

Ner Man wrote: "I wish I knew more about the sex industry (at large) ranging from the “risqué” to the commercial (e.g. personal hygiene to toys and everything between) but also the social constructs surrounding sex so why people react in different ways to talking about sex, why certain ideologies prevail, what are the cultural differences of how sex is interpreted/perceived/discussed/taught  and what has influenced these cultural differences."

Danny Zuko wrote: "I wish I would have been taught straight up about how it all works. None of that birds and bees shit. You know nothing about it and you like you should know about it and you may get embarrassed to ask questions." 

Ariel Mermaid wrote: "What I learned from my parents: when 2 people love each other very much, they have babies. Great job parents!... I would laugh at the jokes the girls made and generally tried to fit in... I just wish I had have known anything so my laughs would have been real." 

Regina Philangie wrote (a novel): 

"There isn't "1 thing I'd wish I'd known"....it's just that I wish Ontario had a sex ed program that was 
1. integrated. a little bit every year. start em slow when they're young. a unit every year or something. 

2. accessible. this is the one time I might be in favour of online learning. In a dream world, kids would be comfortable talking about this stuff out loud but I think the reality is little humans aren't mature enough for that until they reach their late teens-20's. (even then...) If there was a comprehensive online learning program kids could even log in from home if they really had a lot of questions..there would of course be homework so they'd HAVE to actually go through the material and boy do I mean comprehensive. If we took the whole sex ed experience, written by nurses and doctors and psychiatrists and sex ed teachers and specialists...and gave kids real, reliable information and made it accessible.... that would be so amazing. 

3. LGBTQ friendly."

Tinkerbell wrote: "I wish I knew more about contraception, like how the pill works. Also remember in grade 8 when we asked your mom if we could get pregnant for swallowing cum 

hahahahaha."

Empty wrote: "I wish I had been given more facts about who has sex when. Like first time X percentage of people at X age... And how many people people actually sleep with, I feel like we got the impression everyone was doing it with everyone (when really not that many were)"

Study buddy wrote: "I wish I had known the symptoms and treatments of UTIS (urinary tract infection) and yeast infections... so that you don't freak thinking you have an STD when really all you need is to drink cranberry juice :/."

Gangsta G wrote: "I wish I would have known how expensive birth control is. And the HPV vaccine. It's 150$ a pop! And you need 3!" 

Blunt Blunterson wrote: "I wish sex education would have been taught by someone more relatable, like maybe an older student, so we felt more comfortable asking questions."

So, as you can see, there are many things that the people around us wish they would have known. This is what young people actually want to know, and it is clearly implied that not all teenagers are having sex. In fact, our social construction of teenagers as hypersexual seems to create an illusion that all teenagers are or should be having sex, when this is simply not true. It would do us good to see what youth think about sex and all things sexually related, and implement those things into our programs. It is clear that there is a pretty big discrepancy between what teenagers are thought to do and know, and what they actually do and know. 

Thank you to all who contributed to my poll, I hope you enjoy your personalized fake names.

What we wish we would have known

It's funny how we always have a tendency to look back. I would wager money that the words "I wish I had" or "If only I had" are probably some of the most used in the world. I've been raised with the notion does not dwell on the past, because one cannot change it. My mom always quoted the serenity prayer "God, grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Well, I have the serenity to accept that I cannot change the past, but I hope that we have the courage to change the present based on what happened in our past. Allow me to explain. 

So far, we have been talking mostly about sexual education in terms of the physical act of sex. However, what about the emotional aspects of sex? The relational aspects of sex? One could argue that these factors are just as important, and have equally detrimental consequences to youth if they are ignorant of their presence. Granted the consequences are different in nature (physical vs. psychological), but they are there nonetheless. Perhaps we need to consider a more holistic approach to sexual education, and redefine the comprehensive program to include these other factors, creating a multidimensional view of sex. The article What they wish they would have known: Support for comprehensive sexual education from Mexican American and White adolescents' dating and sexual desires by Adams and Williams (2011) supports this claim, stating that: "Findings [in our study] highlight the need for holistic programming that integrates socio-emotional components of intimate partnerships with sexual education" (p.1875). Let us examine what it is exactly that they found. 

The study was conducted in a focus-group style in order to examine what adolescents today wish they would have known about sexual and romantic relationships before becoming involved in them. Adams and Williams (2011) extracted four factors from the data: emotional, relational, physical, and interpersonal. They were particularly interested in examining the different responses among White teenagers and Mexican-American teenagers, and found significant differences. However, in the interest of staying on topic, we will be reviewing what was most commonly cited amongst all the teenagers. Here is what came out the most:

Emotional: I wish I would have known...

• about the emotional turmoil one faces in a romantic relationship
• that breaking up is painful
• not to get attached too soon

Relational: I wish I would have known...

• that you'll never know until you do it yourself
• more about the way the opposite sex acts and thinks 
• how to talk/communicate with the opposite sex
• how much commitment is required of you in a relationship

Physical: I wish I would have known...

• about "getting pregnant" (p.1881)
• more about sex (particularly before having it)
• more about one's body AND the body of the opposite sex 

Interpersonal: I wish I would have known...

• the effects that a romantic relationship has on your other relationships (i.e. can be detrimental) 

So, as we can see, teenagers have many more concerns that simply the physical aspect. They want to know about social, emotional and relational factors as well. However, it is important to ask ourselves: What are we responsible for? What is practical to teach? Where do we draw the line between what we teach and what teenagers should figure out for themselves? I believe that a big part of life is self-learning and discovery, and that it would be wrong to spoon feed our youth with a play by play of how their life is going to develop, and how they should act in specific situations. Making mistakes is a part of life, and dealing with them is an invaluable learning process that makes up a part of who you are. My mother always said that it is not the mistakes you make, but how you deal with them that make you a good person. (Turns out she's pretty wise... damn it). At the same time, it would be irresponsible of us to not give them information that could lead them to make grave mistakes that could ruin their lives, all because they were ignorant. The teens in the study said it themselves: you don't know until you do. But they should have a basic idea of what they are getting into, and the tools to do it properly before they do it. We give them the general guidelines to be safe and proactive, and they can figure out the intricacies. 

I am hugely in favour of including emotional and relational factors in sexual education programs. As a psychology major, (maybe I'm a bit biased) I know how valuable it is to understand how people think, what human tendency is, and how important proper communication skills are. I can see why these factors are overlooked, they may appear rather commonsensical to an adult. It is so important that we remember that these teenagers do not have the perspective we do, that the relationships they are in now (as unimportant as they may turn out to be later on) are extremely important to them in this moment, and what happens to them in this moment could have a serious impact on what happens later on. Adams and Williams (2011) state that: "Given the centrality of emotional experiences during adolescence, providing youth with healthy coping and negotiating strategies within sexual education curricula may be especially timely" (p.1876). If we can give teens the tools to cope effectively with the emotional aspects, as well as the information they need to practice safe sex, we are giving them the tools to be teenagers who are going to have agency in their lives, act responsibly, and be mentally healthy. This can only benefit our youth. 

We also have to remember that not all teenagers are having sex (I certainly wasn't, I was downright scared of it), and that they do not relate at all to the physical aspect of sexual education. However, it is likely safe to say that most teenagers enter some form of romantic relationship at some point in their high school years. This may be a more relatable concept for more teenagers, and would include more people in the classroom. There is absolutely zero academic research that backs this up, I am just speculating. But this may an interesting area for further research. 

So, all in all, it seems that it would be extremely beneficial to start looking at holistic programs, and giving our youth the tools to protect themselves physically AND emotionally in their relational and sexual endeavours. However, as I said before, we cannot talk about the past in the present. We need to change the present for the future. As one study participant bluntly stated: "Hello, I don't need to know about my period. I already had it. I don't need to know this." (as quoted in Adams and Williams, 2011, p.1881). We need to stop living in the past (or in denial), and get into the present, and talk about things that will change the way these kids approach the future. That's all she wrote folks. 

P.S. I may have conducted my own "study" based on this article.. check out part 2, coming very soon. 

References

Adams, H.L., Rankin Williams, L., (2011). What they wish they would have known: Support for comprehensive sexual education from Mexican American and White adolescents' dating and sexual desires, Children and Youth Services Review 33, p.1875-1885. 

Don't be silly, wrap your willy

Ok, I know the title is cheezy (they couldn't all be deep. I have to show off my goofy side, it's part of my charm ;)), but go with me on this one. Remember back during Frosh week (which seems like a lifetime ago to me... God I feel old some days) when all you did was get free condoms left, right, and center? They were obviously sending the message that I eloquently (haha) put in my title. I have read a lot of studies in my time of university, and some that has been consistently stated is that, if people have convenient access to something, they are more likely to use it. So this got me thinking, what other factors might influence someone to use something? Relationships Between Recall of Sex Education and College Students' Sexual Attitudes and Behaviour by Walcott, Chenneville, and Tarquini will provide us with an answer... eventually.


I am pleased to say, that throughout these articles, we have found consistent evidence in favour of comprehensive sex education programs, and this article joins the rest in supporting this well-rounded approach. However, it looks at a unique aspect of the sex education debate: examining the relationship between the perception of previous education and current knowledge, attitudes, and sexual behaviours. They asked roughly 2 000 college students from two different universities. These students had to classify their previous sexual education, and answer a variety of survey items that were coded for things like HIV knowledge, attitudes about safe sex behaviour and the like. They then crossed compared these answers with the type of sexual education that the student had received prior to enrollment. 


They did not really find much of a difference in terms of HIV knowledge or attitudes toward safer sex  between the two types of sex education. There was an extremely small effect size in favour of comprehensive programs, but it's not really a big enough effect to be considered significant. There could be a number of reasons for this: 1) the students had to self-classify their previous education programs, and it could be that some students may have miss-classified their program as comprehensive, when it was actually an abstinence-only program. 2) as has been mentioned before, self-report studies should always be taken with a grain of salt, answers could be reflection social desirability. 
They also found a gender difference, with females demonstrating significantly more positive attitudes toward safer sex than males. This is not really surprising, as it has been well-documented that men are more impulsive by nature. Not to mention that they do not have to worry about getting pregnant if they do not use protection. They may have less to lose by being careless than females do. 


What was found in this study that was really quite insightful, not to mention something we haven't yet talked about, was the following: "Those who perceived sex education as more helpful, and those who were explicitly taught peer negotiation skills, were more likely to use condoms with a nonsteady partner than those who did not report such elements" (Walcott et. al., 2011, p.839). This is such an important finding, as it shows us that talking about using protection, and STD's is not enough to ensure that students are going to be safe in their sexual practices. They need to feel some connection to the problem, and to be taught practical skills, so that they can relate to the problem. Allow me to explain.


In our class, we talked a lot about the idea of agency; empowering the students to be active in their learning, to feel like they have control over their education and what they do with it, to help the students feel like they can make a difference in their environments. Agency is also applicable here to sexual education: students should be able to realize that they can control how they act, that they have power over their own sexuality. Teaching peer negotiation skills gives them that power. You can lecture on and on about how important it is to use a condom, but what good is it when they are faced with the pressure to have unprotected sex? What happens then? By teaching them how to deal with these situations, and giving them the verbal tools to ensure that they stay safe, we are giving them the most valuable tool of all: agency. We often forget how important external factors are, and teaching them about this kind of pressure, and how to deal with it effectively empowers our youth to actively make good choices, and gives them a sense of agency in their sexual lives. 


As Walcott et. al. (2011) put it: "simply providing information about STI's and safer sex choices is not enough; practitioners delivering safer sex messages must also battle negative attitudes, and low expectations or self-efficacy for safer sex behaviours" (p.840). There is clearly a need to redefine sex education programs as they are currently to foster agency in the youth of today. I definitely wish that someone had warned me about the kinds of obstacles there are to performing safe sex, and how to deal with them. Feeling powerless breads apathy, and this is a dangerous attitude to tacitly foster in teenagers. Mitchell et. al. (2004), in their studies of AIDS education, found that the teenagers felt that HIV/AIDS was inevitable, and those who had it felt an invincibility, that they could do whatever they wanted because they were going to die anyways. It's clear that these teenagers lack agency in their lives, and it would likely improve their attitudes if they felt like they had some. 


An important part of agency, I think, is to feel like your voice is heard. And as we saw with Eisenberg et. al. (2008), youth are rarely asked what they think is important in sex education. So, I want to hear it: what do you wish you had known? what should sex education be all about? what is important to include in a sex education program? We'll talk about this next time, so stay tuned. And don't forget: don't be silly, wrap your willy (oh common, you know it's funny). 


References


Walcott, C.M, Chennewille, T., Tarquini, S. (2011). Relationship Between Recall of Sex Education and College Students' Sexual Attitudes and Behaviour, Psychology in Schools 48(8), p.828-842. 

Parents: Maybe they're cooler than we thought

An important theme that I had been hoping to establish throughout this series of posts was that, above all, education and the decisions of what to include in education are politically and socially motivated above all else. It seems like those priorities are a little out of whack, as my mother would say, but that is the way the system works. And, as promised earlier, we should probably talk about what I think may be one of the biggest political motivators: what the parents think.

Let's think about it, what do school's have to lose if the parent's disagree with the school's sex education policies? A whole hell of a lot. People talk, and reputation is everything. Therefore, the system lives in fear of stepping on any toes, particularly not the white, middle-class toes. (that's a whole other issue, we won't go into that just yet). However, have these schools actually looked into what parents actually think about sex education? What do they really want for their children? Support for Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Perspectives from Parents of School-Age Youth by Eisenberg et. al. (2008) will hopefully help us answer that question.

According to Eisenberg et. al. (2008), as well as Walker (2004), there is a commonly held belief that parents are in favour of the abstinence-only programs that preach abstinence as the only way to be 100% sure of safety, and does not supplement children with additional information about protection. We know from before, and Eisenberg et. al. (2008) reiterate this, that the only way to get a piece of the 80 million dollar budget is to have a program that meets the criteria of abstinence-only. So, in my mind, it makes perfect sense that this commonly held belief has turned into some sort of fact, and has remained unquestioned. However, is it fact? Or is it a myth as Walker (2004) suggested?

Eisenberg et. al. (2008) conducted a study that studied parents reactions to sex education in the state of Minnesota (shout out to my roommate Marina who is from that neck of the woods). They used phone interviews to get parents opinions on what kind of programs they would want taught in schools, what topics should be included in these programs, and at what age it should start. It also accounted for confounding factors such as religion, ethnicity, gender etc. This is what they found:

• the overwhelming majority of parents favoured the teaching of comprehensive sex education programs (89.3%) 
• support for the comprehensive programs was high across all groups and types of parents
• parents majoritarily support the inclusion of topics that have been termed controversial (i.e. abortion, sexual orientation etc.)
• the average appropriate start age was grades 6-8, with topics such as puberty being acceptable at earlier ages, and the more controversial topics, such as abortion, being seen as more acceptable in high school

Before we talk about findings, let's take into consideration that phone interviews are somewhat exclusionary: you can only get a hold of people who own phones. This means that a significant demographic of the population is missing from the survey. On the other hand, this survey saw a response rate of 63%, which, according to Eisenberg et. al. (2008), is well over the average response rate for phone interview. Also, we're only talking about the parents of Minnesota here, and may not be generalizable to the rest of the country. However, previous studies that have been conducted in the South and Eastern United States have yielded similar results. 

It seems that this commonly held belief may be a myth after all. An important finding of the article is the following, and I quote: "Most parents disagreed that CSE caused more students to have sex" (Eisenberg et. al., 2008, p.355). This is probably the thing that needed to be said the most. There is an author by the name of Michelle Fine, whose article we studied in our class. The main point of her paper was to talk about silencing in schools, meaning that she discussed the things that were not said in the classroom, things that teachers may have been afraid, or not allowed to bring up. She discussed the idea of dropping-out specifically, and the school that allowed her to conduct a field study did not even allow her to utter the word drop-out, in fear that the students would do it if it was mentioned. First of all, this is insane. Give your students a little credit, life is not a game of Simon Says. They have minds of their own after all. However, this a mentality that we have also seen in sex education. If you don't say sex, they won't get the idea. It is easy to see the connection between this mentality and the current rise of abstinence-only programs in the USA (Eisenberg et. al., 2008). Also, Eisenberg et. al. (2008) mentioned the following in their article: "A 2000 study found that almost one in four sex education teachers had been told not to teach about contraception in their sexuality units" (p.353).  We can see that there are active attempts to silence here, and this is incredibly contrary to what parents want for their children in a school environment. 

Why might this silencing exist? Why is there a discord between what parents want and what is done? Morris (2000) has already provided us with a very plausible explanation: poor pre-service teacher education in how to teach sex education. Teachers often teach what they know, and steer clear of what they don't. So if they don't know anything about sex education, or how to teach it, then how can we expect them to do it at all, let alone in an effective manner? If we want change, we need to teach these teachers how to approach controversial, emotionally charged subjects in a way that allows the classroom to remain a safe environment for everyone. 

We can pretty confidently say that parents are interested in having their children participate in comprehensive education programs, and these findings should be strengthened and taken to heart for the future development of our sex education programs. I'd like to leave you with a thought. Eisenberg et. al. (2008) state: "Interestingly, youth themselves have been asked relatively infrequently about their views on school-based sexuality education" (p.353). Why is it that the people who are experiencing the actual education are being left out of the process? Is it that they are thought to not know what is in their best interests? Are authority figures afraid of relinquishing power? What do you think? One final thing: what do you wish you would have know about sex before going off into the real world? More of this to come. See y'all soon. 

References (new)

Eisenberg, M.E., Bernat, D.H., Bearinger, L.H., Resnick, M.D., (2008). Support for Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Perspectives from Parents of School Age Youth, Journal of Adolescent Health 42, p.353-359. 

Fine, M. (1989), Silencing and Nurturing Voice in an Improbable Context: Urban Adolescents in Public School, In H.A. Giroux, P. McLaren, (Eds.), Cultural Pedagogy, The State, and Cultural Struggle, Albany, New York: State University of New York, p. 152-173.

The LESS you ask, the MORE you'll know

I do not remember a specific time when my parents, namely my mother, started talking with me about sex related things. It was kind of always there in some form. My mom tells me that when I was seven, I boldly came to the conclusion that because my parents had four kids, they had obviously had sex four times. Apparently, my grandmother, who was in the car for this, has never laughed so hard in her life. Nonetheless, as embarrassing as this must have been for my parents, they had never led me astray in the information department. There was always an open atmosphere about sex related topics in my house, and I don't think I ever felt uncomfortable approaching my mom with questions about sex (to a degree, I mean she is still my mother). Actually, just the other day, an old friend of mine asked me if I remembered the time that we wanted to know if you could get pregnant from swallowing semen. Apparently I volunteered to ask my mom so we'd know for sure. So obviously, there was no level of discomfort for me. 


However, I know that this not true for everyone. For some, parents are the last people on earth they would ever go to to talk about sex. My question is the following: how important is the parental role in sex education? What do they contribute to the overall education of their children? Whose responsibility is it exactly to teach kids all about sex? The article I want to talk about today is Parents and sex education -- looking beyond 'the birds and the bees' by Joy Walker (2004), which will hopefully help us answer some of these questions. 


Walker (2004) discusses the changes throughout the 1990's and the beginning of the 21st century in the way that sex education is being conducted in the United Kingdom. She states that parents and educators should be working in a collaborative way to ensure an adequate sex education to the youth of today. She claims it is no longer about responsibility really, but more about working together as a communal unit to promote responsible, healthy sex values. She has reviewed the literature on parental involvement in the sexual education of their children and has concluded the following. When parents are actively involved: 

• children are more comfortable talking amongst themselves
• more likely to delay their first sexual encounter
• when do become sexually active, they are more likely to use effective contraception 
• overall, they have fewer sexual partners

So, clearly, there is a strong argument here. Parents should be involved. Not only should they be involved, but children WANT them to be involved. Walker (2004) found that: "young people expected their parents to pass on information about the 'facts of life'. Indeed, teenage parents in the study were resentful of their own mothers for not providing information compared to their peers' mothers" (p.245).  If there is adequate communication going on between the school and the parents, parents are in a position to reinforce lessons learned at school in the home, which only helps the children learn on a deeper level. Overall, Walker (2004) argues strongly for the involvement of parents in their children's sexual education, and suggests that there should be workshops available for parents who are unsure of how to broach the subject.

There is something that struck a nerve with me in the article, and I wanted to talk about it here. The following quotation provides a good lead in: "There is strong evidence that while the majority of parents are in favour of sex education some were not exercising this role and preferred schools to provide sex education" (Walker, 2004, p.240). Why does this bother me you may wonder? This is why: as a parent, you are responsible for the well-being and safety of your child. In my opinion, it is a form of neglect if you withhold information that could keep them safer, especially if the reason is discomfort or embarrassment. These are NOT adequate reasons to not talk about sex education. Being silent about sex because you feel embarrassed about it is immature, selfish, and inconsiderate. Suck it up, and do right by your kids. 

I appreciate the fact that it can be incredibly uncomfortable for people to talk about sex. However, Walker (2004) suggests that the most important factor is that the child feels that the home environment is an open, accepting environment where they know they can ask questions. My mom had this philosophy of raising kids, which was the inspiration for my title, which is "the less you ask, the more you'll know". We kids knew that our house was an open environment, and I know I always felt comfortable asking my mom questions. I think the key is not to bring it up often, or to attempt to give your children extended lessons on sex, but mostly to make sure that they know that they can ask questions, and not fear judgement of any sort. The point is not to stick your nose in your children's personal lives, but to let them know that being curious about sex is normal, and that they should actively seek information about it before putting it into practice, so to speak. Walker (2004) states that: "children benifit from open cultural attitudes to sexual matters, within family networks and the community, and this helps form the basis for effective health and educational strategies" (p.243), and I couldn't agree more. It now makes perfect sense to me why the sex education programs in the USA seem to be ineffective: there is certainly not an open atmosphere regarding sex in those parts. Abstinence-only programs certainly do not promote active questioning. 

What parents think, or are believed to think has a seemingly immense impact on what is taught. We have seen that education, particularly of the sex variety, is extremely politically and socially motivated. However, it may be time to ask the parents directly what they think. As Walker (2004) puts it: "For too long the myth that parents oppose sex education has been perpetuated in the UK" (p.251). Is it a myth? Is it the truth? What are parents thinking about this? It's all about parents in the next installment of our sex education talk, coming your way in matter of hours. Stay tuned. 


References


Walker, J. (2004). Parents and sex education -- looking beyond 'the birds and the bees', Sex Education 4(3), p.239-254. 

Thou Shalt Abstain

If there's one thing that really gets me going, it's illogicality. (Is a word? Spell check says yes... I'm going to go with it). I consider myself to be a pretty open-minded, logical type of person. In my world, if you're asked to add 1 and 1, the answer is 2. However, it seems that this is not the way the world works. 1 plus 1 does not always equal two where ever social politics are involved. I think I might be getting ahead of myself... let's back it up a bit. 


How would you characterize your sex education program at your school? Mine was what the article, Abstinence-Only and Comprehensive Sex Education and the Initiation of Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy by Kohler, Manhart, and Lafferty (2008) would likely classify as comprehensive. Abstinence was explained to be the only way to be 100% sure that you would not get pregnant, or contract an STD. However, we were taught about all the methods of contraception, how to use them, and how effective they were when used properly. We also discussed the various STD's, how they were contracted, and the signs, symptoms, and treatment of each. So, as it turns out, my sex education was not all bad. However, there are some people out there who have experienced abstinence-only programs, where this additional information about contraception and STD's may not have been supplied. My question is this: is there a link between the type of sex education you receive and rates of pregnancy, STD, and engagement in intercourse? This is the topic on the docket for this fine evening. 


Before I ramble on about what I think, let us examine the findings of the study conducted by Kohler et. al. (2008). They surveyed over 1000 students from the ages of 15-19, asking them about the type of sexual education they had received BEFORE their first instance of intercourse. They were asked about experience with intercourse, pregnancy, and STD's. They were also asked to classify what kind of sex education they had received: either none, abstinence-only, or comprehensive. Here is what they found:

• Compared to those who had received no sex education at all, those who received comprehensive sex education were marginally less likely to be engaging in intercourse
• Those who have received comprehensive sex education were significantly less likely to report a teen pregnancy, and have 50% lower risk of pregnancy
• Abstinence-only programs were not significantly related to delaying initiation of sexual activity or in reducing risk of pregnancy or STD contraction 
• Socioeconomic status plays a role in accessibility to sexual education, and those who reported not receiving sex education were likely to be of lower socioeconomic statuses, or members of a visible minority

We have to keep in mind that, with any study that involves self-report, there is going to be a problem. You never know if people are going to tell you the truth, what you think you want to hear, or if they will change their answers to fit with what they believe is expected of them. Also, this is cross-sectional study (meaning that different groups were studied at one point in time), as well as correlational, which makes the establishment of cause and effect difficult (Kohler et. al. 2008). This study also excluded anyone who was not heterosexual, as current sex programs do not address any kind of same-sex contact (more on this another time). However, there is definitely a difference between the two programs, with comprehensive programs looking to be more beneficial to teens in terms of having safe sex. There was a limitation that Kohler et. al (2008) considered that I found extremely insightful, and also should prompt further research in this area: "Evaluations of abstinence-only programs may also be limited by social desirability bias, as participants in these programs may be less likely to report sexual activity before marriage. [...] Given this social desirability bias, the true difference between these programs may be greater than what we observed" (p.351). More research needs to happen to strengthen these findings.

Now, back to my difficulties with illogicality. Kohler et. al. (2008) present statistics on teenage pregnancy, and STD's in the United States, and they have been on the rise. Not only are they on the rise, but they are higher than in other developed countries. Bay-Cheng (2004) and Morris (2000) also reported similar findings. According to Kohler et. al. (2008), in 2008, the budget for abstinence based programs in the United States was 80 million dollars. 80 MILLION DOLLARS. That is an insane amount of money. So you would think that this would assist the United States in lowering their rates of teen pregnancy and STD's. But you would be wrong. In the United States, you can only get government funding for programs that are abstinence based. More specifically, "a sex education program must have as its exclusive purpose "teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity"" (Social Security Act. Section 510, via Kohler et. al. 2008, p.345). This 80 million dollars goes SOLELY to these programs. 

This is where illogicality kicks in: Why would you spend so much money on programs that are clearly not working? WHY? It makes me crazy thinking how counterproductive this is. Somers and Eaves (2002) showed us that sex education at an earlier age did not correlate with the earlier sexual activity. And here, we learn that talking about contraception does not lead teenagers to have sex either. AND abstinence is not related to later start of intercourse. So what the hell are we waiting for? 

We know the answer to this. Say it with me: politics. Not only is it politics, but we have seen how social construction of adolescents affects our programs. However, we have to ask ourselves a couple of important questions: Are we possibly doing more harm than good by failing to properly educate teenagers on methods of contraception, and STD transmission and prevention? I absolutely think we are. It's time to accept that teenagers are going to have sex if you tell them to, or if you tell them not to. We need to realize that, by giving them this knowledge, we are not enabling them to have sex, we are teaching them how to be responsible and safe. This is the way the world is going, and I say, instead of fighting it, we deal with it, and do what we can to ensure that our youth are as safe as we are. We owe them that much.

So what is stopping us? Is it social customs? Pressure from above? Fear of how the parents will react? Let's rest on this last one. What do parents actually think about what their children should be learning? We will look into that next time, so stay tuned. As always, feel free to share your experiences in sex education. What do you wish you would have known about sexual relations before they happened? Keep me posted, I'd love to hear from you. Till next time! 

 References (new) 

Kohler, P.K., Manhardt, L.E., Lafferty, W.E. (2008), Abstinence-Only and Comprehensive Sex Education and the Initiation of Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy, Journal of Adolescent Health 42, p.344-351. 

When Kids are Kids No More

Do you remember your very first sexual education experience? For me, it was the 7th grade, and our gym teacher, who was male, divided the boys and girls up, took the boys into a different classroom, and we were left with a female teacher's aid. We talked about the biological side of reproduction, but not much more than that. Keep in mind I went to a catholic school, so talking about sex at that age may not have been considered appropriate due to the frowning upon pre-marital sex thing. 


This is a major issue in sexual education; when do we start educating our youth about sex? When are they ready to hear it? Will it be harmful to them if they are not ready? What is appropriate at what age? These questions have many answers, depending who you ask, but we are going to try and come up with some today. Buckle up people, these results might surprise you. 


Today we are reviewing, "Is Earlier Sex Education Harmful?", a correlational study by Cheryl Somers and Matt Eaves (2002). This study examines two main questions: 1) how the timing of sexual education affects the involvement of youth in sexual intercourse, and 2) the relation of timing with the frequency of sexual behaviour.  This is what they found:

• For girls, learning about sexual intercourse, birth control, and masturbation resulted in less frequent communication about these issues with parents, friends and partners
• For boys, the reverse was true: early learning resulted in more frequent communication, but it also resulted in more frequent sexual behaviour such as masturbation, petting and kissing (stop giggling! I can hear you from here...) 
• Only for boys was there a correlation between earlier learning about masturbation and earlier age of sexual intercourse. This was the only significant finding for the second question. 

So... let's think about this for a minute. What do these findings mean to us? Well, for starters, at first glance, we could say that we obviously shouldn't teach boys about sex, because their just going to start doing it earlier. However, if we take a longer look, we realize that this study is correlational. Now, for all you psychology majors out there, what is the one thing we are told time and time again? Say it with me: Correlation does not imply causation. Therefore, we cannot definitively conclude that earlier sexual education causes one to have intercourse at an earlier age. Somers and Eaves (2002) acknowledge that parents often do not start teaching their children about sexual education until the behaviour has already started, therefore implying that it could be that those who received earlier education were already experimenting with sexual behaviours. As for the girls, we have to realize that sexual education and the issues it brings up are, for some, deeply personal. Somers and Eaves (2002) suggest that hearing about topics before one is ready can cause this lack of communication, which is a behaviour that we want to encourage. They acknowledge that it there may be a fine line at which one is ready to hear something and when they are not, implying that there is such a thing as too early. This research is preliminary, and the authors admit that there are some important limitations in their study i.e. wide learning range, use of self-report, and the need for better methods to determine what topics were learned at what times. This aspect is somewhat under-researched, according to Somers and Eaves (2002), so there is obviously a need for future, improved research in this domain.  

General conclusion of the study?: "Overall, as a preliminary evaluation of the timing of sex education, the data suggest that sexual education at an early age can be beneficial when care is taken in the topics taught" (Somers and Eaves, 2002, p.31). I think the most important implication that we can take from this is that saying the word sex is not going to cause kids to go out and do it. This, in my opinion, has been a major push behind the fear-based, abstinence-only programs that, as we discovered in our review of Bay-Cheng, are the current norm. In class, we talked about a concept called "the politics of innocence". I won't bore you with the intimate details of the entire article, but it talked about the depiction of adolescents in AIDS education in Southern Africa. Mitchell et. al. (2004) described this depiction as one of adolescents being naive, innocent, and in need of protection. We know how important interpretation is, and if this is how we view the youth of today, it makes sense why there is such fear at starting sexual education at an early age. If adolescents are viewed as not knowing any better, as unable to control their "hypersexuality", as being naive and in need of protection from the evils of the world, it makes perfect sense that earlier sexual education is normally not something that happens. Yes we all learn about how a baby is made before high school in theory, but who out there learned about STD's and contraception before high school? And with the mean ages of sexually active teens lowering by the minute (Somers and Eaves, 2002) it might behoove us to rethink this conception of adolescence and childhood. Innocent does not have to mean naive and ignorant. 

To finish off, I would like to briefly discuss a quotation in Somers and Eaves (2002) that really resonated with me. It is the following: "It is normal for adolescents to have sexual experiences, regardless of their levels of education. All sexual behaviours are not necessarily bad or undesirable" (p.31). This is a very refreshing thing to hear, and it rang true with me. It's all part and parcel of discovering our bodies, and developing our sexual identity, which are important parts of healthy development. It seems counter-productive and downright idiotic to attempt to prevent this. Rather than trying to prevent sexual behaviour, we should be trying to prevent IRRESPONSIBLE sexual behaviour. That's where the problem lies, not in the behaviour itself, but how it is enacted. I'm not saying we should encourage rampant sexual activity, but simply that we should provide adolescents and pre-adolescents with the tools they need to be responsible citizens, and to experiment in ways that do not harm others or themselves. Knowledge is power and agency, and we should not keep our youth in the dark to their own disadvantage. 

So, we know that earlier sexual education is not all that bad, provided you're not scaring 10 year old's with graphic pictures of chlamydia, or raunchy videos. (OK, a bit dramatic, but you get my drift). Stay tuned for discussion about current programs of sexual education, what works and what doesn't? Feel free to leave opinions, stories, and random thoughts. It's always nice to know what others think about what you're thinking about. 

References

Mitchell, C., Walsh, S., Larkin, J., (2004), Visualizin the politics of innocence in the age of AIDS, Sex Education 4(1), p.135-147. doi: 10/1080.1468181042000176524

Somers, C.L., Eaves, M.W., (2002). Is earlier sex education harmful? An analysis of the timing of school-based sex education and adolescent sexual behaviours, Research in Education 67, p.23-32. 

Small Town Syndrome

I feel like, in the past 3 months, I have learned more about the world I live in than I have in my entire lifetime. I realized that my small town life was sheltered, privileged and naive. You can't possibly know what is out there when everyone around you is exactly the same. Small towns are the victim of what I like to call the homogeneity effect: there is not much variability in race, culture, ethnicity or religion. The education system is built on the notion that the entire world is like a small town:  a single perspective, a single construction of intelligence, and an assumption of normality to which we are all expected to conform. 


Now, I realize that this introduction is seemingly far removed from sexual education, but that is where I discover my inner spider, and start weaving a web of connections (that sounded way less lame in my head, I swear). Education is, above all, a political entity, and sexual education is perhaps the most political sub-entity of them all. What is taught is extremely dependent on how we construct adolescents, what we assume to be normal, and what we value. Allow me to demonstrate what I mean here, which will summarize some of the main ideas that were learned in our Contemporary Issues in Education classroom. 


Let's think about how our society constructs adolescents. In my experience, especially having just been there, I can say that most people view adolescents as loose cannons of sorts: they're moody, mouthy, rebellious, hormonal, emotional, difficult, and are doing it like rabbits. I know that sounds a bit crude, but hey, I'm just keeping it real. This construction of hypersexuality is a main element of Laina Bay-Cheng's (2003) article that we reviewed in class. She states that "the infusion of a biologically determined hypersexuality into the identity of the adolescent succeeds in giving inevitable and natural cause for adult intervention and surveillance" (p.62). By constructing adolescents in this way, the adult world has a responsibility to "control" the adolescents, to reduce and subdue their "uncontrollable" urges. The education world does this by implementing "abstinence-only" or "abstinence-centered" programs that are largely fear-based, (meaning that they concentrate on the negative consequences of sex) attempting to deter teens from having any form of sex. We will talk about the effectiveness of these types of programs later on, so stay tuned. 


So we know how we construct adolescents, and now we have to decide what it normal, so that we can teach it. As a society, we are completely obsessed with normality; our entire lives are fashioned around the idea of normalcy. Think about it: what was the most important thing as a child? Most of you are probably thinking that you wanted to be just like the popular kids, to be part of the in-crowd. Normalcy could almost be considered a value, something that is inherently right. So we ask ourselves, what is normal sexually speaking? Bay-Cheng (2003) succinctly explains this normalcy: "normality is located within a monogamous, coitus-centered relationship between a man and a woman, both of whom generally conform to conventional gender roles" (p.67). There's a major problem here: in this day and age, this is no longer the only perspective we can address. The LGTBQ community is totally excluded from this perspective, and young people who do not identity with this heterosexual identity are impeded from further developing their identity in the classroom, which is arguably one of the biggest purposes of school. Bay-Cheng (2003) also states that "to accept a single way of being as natural is to privilege it and imbue it with a sort of correctness" (p.67). So, basically, the message that is being sent to the LGTBQ youth in the classroom is that they are wrong, that they are irregular, that they are not normal, that they don't fit in. In light of all the recent gay teen suicides, this seems like something that should be of high priority to remedy. 


This issue of normalcy also ties into the next problem: what do we value? If we are supposed to teach the youth of today what is right, then what do we teach them? What is "right"? In his chapter on sexual education, values, and cultural diversity, Ronald W. Morris (2000) discusses the predicament we have had throughout history on what to include, value-wise in programs. There was a time when sexual education was thought to be best taught objectively, free of values. However, you cannot really teach a subject that is so full of emotion, political, and social connotation in a "value-free" way, to which Morris agrees. However, he explains that we cannot use "pre-packaged" values, and that, in my opinion, is the biggest fallacy of our system. Our sexual values are very much influenced by religious doctrine, which is highly apparent in the construction of normalcy (did you know that, in the 16th century, 10% of canon law was concerning sex or sex-related items?). We are incredibly stuck in the past when it comes to values applied to sexual education, and remain firm in attempting to prevent sex, as opposed to being actively trying to prevent unsafe sex. This is another reason why abstinence-only and abstinence-centered programs remain so popular. Morris also discusses the inadequate education that pre-service teachers are getting, and how this is causing their own values to influence their teaching, and to cause them to fear the controversial, "non-normal" components of sexual education, and therefore, exclude them from their teachings completely. This is a notion we will explore more deeply as we go along.

I know this is a lot of information to take in at once. However, we have created a picture of what sexual education programs are looking like today, and talked about some of the reasons why they are the way they are. Now, we can talk about the all-important question of the hour: do they work? I would tell you what I think…. but if I did that there would be no reason to keep reading, would there? :P. Stay tuned, it’s about to get interesting :). 

References 

Bay-Cheng, Laina Y. (2003). The Trouble of Teen Sex: the construction of adolescent sexuality through school-based sexuality education. Sex Education 3(1). 61-71. doi: 10.1080/1468181032000052162

Morris, R.W. (2000) “Sexuality Education, Values and Cultural Diversity: International Developments and Questions Arising,” in M. Leicester, C. Modgil, and S. Modgil (eds.) Education, Culture and Values: Practice, Pedagogy and Curriculum (Vol. 3), London: Falmer Press. p. 212-219. 

If there was ever a touchy subject...

...it would be this one. Let's face it, most of us have been, are, and will remain to be somewhat preoccupied with sex throughout our lives. The human race has always been preoccupied with the subject of sex; we have struggled for centuries to define it, normalize it, decide what is acceptable, and most importantly, what is NOT acceptable. Sex may be the longest, ongoing conundrum that our world has ever known; it is social, political, personal, and religious.
In light of all of this, if sex is such an important issue, where do we learn about it? At home with our parents? In the school yard with our girlfriends? Cosmopolitan or GQ magazine? In school?
We are all supposed to have a sexual education as part of our formal schooling, mine was included as a unit in Grade 9 gym class. Grade 9 gym is mandatory in Ontario, which means that everyone in my high school got sexual education. However, are these programs effective? What exactly are they teaching the youth of today? Where are the boundaries drawn between what students need to know and what is inappropriate to teach them? And, maybe the most difficult question of all, who decides what we are supposed to teach these kids? Who decides what is right, what is wrong, what is appropriate, and what is not?
While developing the idea for this blog as a final project for my Contemporary Issues in Education class, I asked a few friends what their sexual education experiences had been. I expected to hear things similar to what I had experiened, i.e. abstinence-centred program that discussed the different methods of contraception, how to use them, and how effective they were. We also discusses STD's at length, with everyone in the class doing a project on a different STD. However, this is not what I discovered. One of my friends, who went to school in Vancouver, didn't have sex education at all. She claims she just missed it, that others got it, but she slipped through the cracks of the system. Another friend, who went to a Mennonite school in Ontario, told me that her program had the class watch a birthing video. Another, who went to school in Manitoba, told me that her school's program was extremely fear-based with the basic message being something of the "do not have sex, you will get pregnant, you will contract an STD, and your life will be over" variety. So, as you can see, in my somewhat small social group alone, we have had very different experiences with sexual education. I am sure you can all find problems in every single one of these programs. 
This is the main purpose of my project blog, to discuss various problems in sexual education today by reviewing some of the recent literature, and discussing the findings, implications, and suggestions that are presented in these articles. The goal here is that, by the end of this series, we have a clearer picture of where sex education is today, what is working, what is not, and how we can change it. As a (hopeful) future educator, I hope to be inspired, and to actively apply some of these findings in my future classroom. So, with all of these questions in mind, let's dive in! There is much to talk about...