Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire

1988 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Fine
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Teenage Pregnancy ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
Adolescent Females ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Health Clinics ◽  
School Based ◽  
Sexual Responsibility

Michelle Fine argues that the anti-sex rhetoric surrounding sex education and school-based health clinics does little to enhance the development of sexual responsibility and subjectivity in adolescents. Despite substantial evidence on the success of both school-based health clinics and access to sexuality information, the majority of public schools do not sanction or provide such information. As a result, female students, particularly low-income ones, suffer most from the inadequacies of present sex education policies. Current practices and language lead to increased experiences of victimization, teenage pregnancy, and increased dropout rates,and consequently, ". . . combine to exacerbate the vulnerability of young women whom schools, and the critics of sex education and school-based health clinics, claim to protect."The author combines a thorough review of the literature with her research in public schools to make a compelling argument for "sexuality education" that fosters not only the full development of a sexual self but education in its broadest sense.

scholarly journals Programming for HIV prevention in Mexican schools

2003 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Teacher Training ◽  
Hiv Prevention ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
School Students ◽  
National Education ◽  
School Based ◽  
Teacher Training Programs ◽  
Mexican Schools

As national education programs incorporate HIV prevention into school curriculums, policymakers and educators need to know what they can expect from these initiatives. Can such courses influence the behavior of students and improve their knowledge and attitudes? If not, what can these courses reasonably be expected to accomplish, and what part can they play in overall HIV programming for youth? To help answer these questions, the Mexican Institute of Family and Population Research (IMIFAP), the Mexican Ministry of Public Education (SEP), and the Horizons Program examined the effects of a school-based HIV-prevention program on Mexican secondary-school students. All public schools in Mexico must implement sexuality education and teacher-training programs, although the content is left to each state’s discretion. Students must pass this class just as they would other courses in the curriculum. With approval from SEP, a leading Mexican NGO (IMIFAP) experienced in designing sex education courses developed the curriculum and the teacher-training program used in this study. The 30-session student curriculum, described in this brief, focuses on a broad range of topics that aim to equip students with information and skills to prevent HIV infection.

scholarly journals “What Do Our Boys Know about Sex?” Preliminary Data of a New Questionnaire for the Evaluation of the Knowledge of Sexuality among Adolescents

Uro ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-107
Author(s):  
Francesco Persico ◽  
Paolo Fedelini ◽  
Marco Fabiano ◽  
Luigi Pucci ◽  
Maria Ferraiuolo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sex Education ◽  
Teenage Pregnancy ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
School Based ◽  
Internet Media ◽  
One Year ◽  
National Health Policies

Background: The sexual health of young people is an especially important issue for national health policies. Adolescents, in fact, are at elevated risk for adverse sexual and reproductive health outcomes relative to their habits, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), sexual behaviour and teenage pregnancy. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge about sexuality of students under the age of 18. Moreover, we aimed to explore the influence of sex education on sexual knowledge and behaviour. Methods: The participants were enrolled during a cultural exchange project in September 2019. After completing the questionnaire, all students took part in a sex education course performed by an urologist with expertise in sociology and psychology. The adolescents repeated the same survey in a web form in September 2020, one year after the course. Results: Analyzing the data, sex education lessons helped to improve students’ confidence in approaching all the issues of the questionnaire. Moreover, we observed a significant increase in the role of school as main source of information, while the role of the internet, media and family remained stable. Conclusions: This study encouraged the introduction of school-based sexual education policies, pointing to opportunities for structural early intervention programs.

scholarly journals Who Is Who in the Teaching of Sex Education? A Lesson Learned from the 'Safuu' Oromo Tradition of East Africa

2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Admasu Etefa Tucho
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Alaska Native ◽  
Teenage Pregnancy ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
School Students ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
K 12

The 2020 National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data show that there are a total of 130,930 k-12 public schools in the United States of America (U.S.A), serving approximately 48.1 million students. The demographic breakdown of the student population includes 22 million (45.7%) Whites; 13. Million (32 %) Hispanic; 17.2 million (14%) African American; 2.6 million (5.4%) Asian, 2.2 million (4.6%) students two or more races; and 0.4 million (0.8%) American Indian/ Alaska Native students. Adding sex education to the public school curriculum was primarily to make elementary and secondary school students aware of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy. Although comprehensive sexuality education has been operational in all 50 states for decades, the program's quality and comprehensiveness vary considerably from state to state due to a series of obstacles. The author of this article proposes an alternative or at least supplemental approach to the current comprehensive sex education.

scholarly journals Re-Conceptualizing School Continuation & Re-Entry Policy for Young Mothers Living in an Urban Slum Context in Nairobi, Kenya: A Participatory Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-328
Author(s):  
Milka Perez Nyariro
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Teenage Pregnancy ◽  
Urban Slum ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Policy Dialogue ◽  
Young Mothers ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Teenage Girls ◽  
Inequality In Education

This article discusses the barriers to school continuation for pregnant girls and young mothers living in low-income and marginalized contexts in Nairobi, Kenya. In the article, I suggest adopting a girl-centered framework in the policy formulation process (Moletsane, Mitchell, & Lewin, 2015). This perspective puts girls’ voices at the center of the policy formulation process to help address the persistent gender inequality in education through problem identification and an exploration of ways to combat the challenges faced by girls. The article, which analyzes studies of government’s education policies, is supported by data from my recent fieldwork investigating young mothers’ challenges to school continuation and re-entry in Kenya, within the context of Kenya’s re-entry and continuation policy effected in 1994. I discuss the school re-entry and continuationpolicies in low-income contexts using the framework of critical feminism. I argue that there is need to integrate multi-pronged, participatory and feminist frameworks to promote systematic government educational policy reforms to shore up gender equality (King & Winthrop, 2015).  To support this argument, I develop three main claims: (a) broad conceptualization of the causes of teenage pregnancy will promote the use of multi-pronged approaches to the design of school re-entry and continuation policies; (b) formulation and implementation of any robust policies on re-entry and continuation require strong integration of the voices, perspectives and the lived experiences of pregnant teenage girls and young mothers; and (c) the use of participatory visual methodologies will give voice to pregnant girls and young mothers, and promote policy dialogue while at the same time empowering them and spurring their agency to become part of policy formulation and implementation.

Sex Education in the United States

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggie Scott ◽  
Carolyn S. Marsh ◽  
Jessica Fields
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Sexuality Research ◽  
Sexual Health Education ◽  
School Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sex And Sexuality

The terms sex education, sexuality education, and sexual health education—mentioned throughout this article—all reflect the diverse scholarship that considers how sex and sexuality are taught and learned in different contexts across the lifespan. While people learn about sex and sexuality throughout their lives, most discussion of sexuality education focuses on the lessons learned by children, adolescents, and youth. And, though young people learn about sex and sexuality from various sources, US debates about sexuality education focus on school-based learning. This article considers the social construction of childhood and debates around school-based sex education as well as scholarship that examines other sites of sex and sexuality education. Families, religious and secular communities, media, and the Internet all play significant roles in dispersing information and values surrounding sex and sexuality. These and other sites of sexuality education reflect and contribute to societal and cultural ideologies around sex and sexuality. Research on sexuality education has also considered the ways sex education has the potential to reproduce, as well as contest, societal inequalities. This article focuses on sexuality education in the United States, and while the majority of the scholarship reflects this focus, included are some texts written within other national contexts that have influenced scholarship or thinking about sexuality education research and practice within the United States. While this article does not contain a section explicitly engaging with citizenship, the ways sexuality education has been involved in constructing and policing US national identity comes up in several sections. (The authors thank Jen Gilbert and anonymous reviewers for feedback on earlier versions of this article.)

Urban Elementary Single-Sex Math Classrooms

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anica G. Bowe ◽  
Christopher D. Desjardins ◽  
Lesa M. Covington Clarkson ◽  
Frances Lawrenz
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Sixth Graders ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
African American Girls ◽  
Achievement Gains ◽  
Single Sex ◽  
Academic Stereotypes

This study utilized a mixed-methods approach to holistically examine single-sex and coeducational urban elementary mathematics classes through situated cognitive theory. Participants came from two urban low-income Midwestern elementary schools with a high representation of minority students ( n = 77 sixth graders, n = 4 teachers, n = 2 principals). Findings demonstrate that African American girls made more math achievement gains in single-sex classrooms; single-sex classrooms might mitigate math academic stereotypes for students and teachers; and that important contextual factors play a role in these outcomes. Testing these factors is a step toward delineating a theory of change for single-sex education in urban public schools.

scholarly journals Acceptability and feasibility of a school-based contraceptive clinic in a low-income community in South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nondumiso Khoza ◽  
Phindile Zulu ◽  
Maylene Shung-King
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Side Effects ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Teenage Pregnancy ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
School Principal ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Teenage Girls ◽  
School Based ◽  
Contraceptive Side Effects

AbstractAimTo investigate how acceptable and feasible a school-based contraceptive clinic (SBCC) would be in a low-income South African community.BackgroundTeenage pregnancy is an important issue in South Africa, with significant health and social consequences. Issues regarding lack of confidentiality in an intimate community, unwelcoming health workers, long distances to clinics and perceptions of contraceptive side effects may all inhibit contraceptive use by adolescents. Although SBCC has been initiated and investigated in other countries, this approach is inadequately researched in South Africa.MethodsA mixed method study was conducted to assess the attitudes of one community towards establishment of an SBCC in their area. Methods of data collection included: focus group discussions (FGDs) with teenage girls from a local high school; a key informant interview with the school principal; a structured survey, including open-ended questionnaires with randomly selected parents of teenage girls from the same community; and a documentary analysis to explore relevant legal and policy considerations.FindingsTeenage girls, the school principal and parents with teenage daughters largely supported the idea of an SBCC, but with concerns about confidentiality, the possibility of increased promiscuity and contraceptive side effects. While legal statutes and policies in South Africa do not pose any barriers to the establishment of an SBCC, some logistical barriers remain.

Sexuality Education and Desire: Still Missing after All These Years

2006 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHELLE FINE ◽  
SARA McCLELLAND
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Young People ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
Adolescent Females ◽  
Youth Of Color ◽  
National Policies ◽  
Transgender Youth ◽  
Research Guidelines ◽  
Abstinence Only

Nearly twenty years after the publication of Michelle Fine's essay "Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire," the question of how sexuality education influences the development and health of adolescents remains just as relevant as it was in 1988. In this article, Michelle Fine and Sara McClelland examine the federal promotion of curricula advocating abstinence only until marriage in public schools and, in particular, how these policies constrict the development of "thick desire" in young women. Their findings highlight the fact that national policies have an uneven impact on young people and disproportionately place the burden on girls, youth of color, teens with disabilities, and lesbian/gay/bisexual/ transgender youth. With these findings in mind, the authors provide a set of research guidelines to encourage researchers, policymakers, and advocates as they collect data on, develop curricula for, and change the contexts in which young people are educated about sexuality and health.

scholarly journals Use of Digital Media for Sex Education in Early Childhood with Low-Income Parents

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-29
Author(s):  
Susianty Selaras Ndari ◽  
Khusniyati Masykuroh ◽  
Amelia Vinayastri ◽  
Kibitiah Kibitiah
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
Role Of Parents ◽  
At Home

This study aims to explore the use of digital smartphone media for sexuality education of children with low-income parents by emphasizing the usage of digital media for protection from sexual violence against children. This research method uses case studies with children (aged 3-6 years) in 25 low-income families. Data collection was carried out for eight rounds using an ecocultural approach to examine the experiences of children and parents in using digital media technology for sex education for children aged 3-6 years. This research explains 1) What technology is used by children at home ?, 2) what is the role of parents at home in helping children in providing sex education learning using digital media ?, 3) What are the benefits of using digital media for sex? education for children? This is done because of the adaptation of technology to the curriculum for early childhood education. Due to the increasing use of digital media in all layers of parents, so the use of digital technology can help children to learn to increase their knowledge of sexuality. So they can protect themselves from sexual violence.

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