The Births and the Bees: How Sexual Behavior and Attitudes are Influenced by Sources of Sex Education
Loading...
Date
2016-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
From politicians to parents, everybody seems to have a stake in the conversation about sex education. Currently, teens get their knowledge about sex primarily from informal sources such as friends or the media, which can lead to unhealthy sexual behaviors and attitudes. Therefore it is important to explore the option of formal sex education to inform teens about safe and healthy sexual behaviors. Research has focused on parental communication and school sex education separately; both have been proven to be effective encouraging safe sexual behaviors. The purpose of this research is to explore the effects of communication with parents about sex and formal sex education together, on sexual behaviors and attitudes using the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Ordinary least square regressions and logistic regression were used on the weighed data. Results indicate that having both sources of sex education actually lowers the age that a respondent had sex for the first time, but those respondents were almost twice as likely to use contraceptives than those who had no sex education. In terms of attitude, there is evidence to support that having both at-home conversation and in-school sex education lead to more sex positive sexual attitudes using a question on egalitarian sexual views. This analysis of the intersection of formal and informal sex education opens up a dialogue about how successful sex education should be defined and executed. Even though respondents tended to have sex younger with any kind of sex education, they held more egalitarian values than those who received no sex education and were more likely to use contraceptives.
Description
Keywords
sex education, sexual behaviors, sexual attitudes, survey