Sex Education in Schools: Overview

Introduction

The multifaceted debate over sex education in the United States has often included the question of who should teach students about issues relating to sex such as intercourse, pregnancy, contraception, gender identity, sexual orientation, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and relationships. Should sex education be left up to parents, or do schools have a responsibility to inform students about these issues?

If topics relating to sex are to be taught in schools, a second major issue in the debate is what type of information, and by extension what sexual values, should be transmitted through a sex education curriculum. The approaches to sex education programs most debated in the United States have been abstinence-only curricula and comprehensive sex education. Although it is not only a religious issue, abstinence-only programs tend to be supported by Christian groups and social conservatives, and comprehensive sex education programs tend to be consistent with a more liberal point of view.

Another question in the debate relates to disagreement over whether state or federal funds should be used to support sex education in public schools and, if so, what forms of sex education should be funded.

Finally, since teen pregnancy is a major social and political issue nationwide, much of the discussion about sex education has to do with its effectiveness in reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies.

Understanding the Discussion

Abstinence: The practice of avoiding sexual intercourse until marriage. Abstinence-only sex education programs focus on abstinence as the standard and preferred lifestyle for young people and emphasize the benefits of refraining from intercourse.

Comprehensive sex education: Programs covering a broad range of topics related to sexuality. These programs typically combine information about abstinence with information on condoms and other contraceptive methods, as well as education about sexually transmitted infections. They have also often come to include discussion of consent as well as sexuality in gender identity and LGBTQ contexts, with an emphasis on holistic and inclusive education about the physical, emotional, and social aspects of sexuality.

Contraception: Any of various means of preventing pregnancy, including but not limited to the use of condoms and birth control pills.

Sexual orientation: A person's physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to another person.

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs): Infections that can be transmitted from person to person through sexual contact. These include HIV/AIDS, chlamydia, herpes, human papilloma virus (HPV), and hepatitis, among others.

History

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sex education in the United States was strongly informed by Victorian values. For instance, sex education of the time taught that sexually transmitted infections were the result of punishment for immoral behavior.

Discussion on a national level over what to teach children about sex in schools existed as early as 1912, when the National Education Association recommended that teachers be trained to provide education about sexuality.

By 1940, the US Public Health Service had made a strong statement about the importance of sex education in schools. This statement was partly the result of concern over the spread of STIs among service members during the World Wars. In the 1950s, the American Medical Association worked with the National Education Association to publish a series of pamphlets that became the basis of most school-based sex education programs. However, the range and depth of information conveyed in the classroom varied widely, and there was no national policy on what to teach and how to teach sexual education. At the time, contraceptives were still illegal in some states, and as a result, this topic was often neglected in sex education curricula.

In the 1960s, opponents of sex education in schools began to organize their dissent, in response to a changing social and legal climate: the first birth control pill was developed in 1960. In 1965 contraceptives were made legal for married couples. Seven years later, contraceptives were permitted for unmarried people as well. There was some resistance to these transformations in American sexual values, and many saw attempts to broaden sex education in schools as attacks on traditional morals. Despite this opposition, however, the majority of schools in major cities began including some form of sex education in high school health or human development classes.

In the 1980s, the sex education debate underwent a rapid change as a result of nationwide concern over the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The surgeon general during this time, C. Everett Koop, published a report in 1986 calling for sex education, including information on preventing the transmission of the HIV virus through safe sex, to be instituted in public schools starting at the elementary level.

By 1988, over 90 percent of all US schools offered some sex education programming. From that point, the debates over sex education tended to focus mainly on the approach and content of the programs, especially the relative merits of abstinence-only curricula and comprehensive sex education programs.

Those who are in favor of abstinence-only programs and against comprehensive sex education typically argue that teaching young people about safe sex is tantamount to encouraging them to have sex. Supporters of abstinence-only programs therefore worry that instituting comprehensive sex education in schools will increase the level of sexual activity among teenagers, thus increasing the rates of STIs and teenage pregnancies. Opponents of comprehensive sex education also claim that such programs undermine traditional family values and condone abortion and homosexuality. Abstinence, they say, is the only appropriate choice when educating young people about sexuality. Supporters of abstinence-only programs have pointed to such evidence as a 1997 study that concluded that young people who pledged to remain virgins until marriage were more likely to start having sex at a later age than those who did not take such a pledge.

Those who favor comprehensive sex education over abstinence-only programs counter with the argument that many, if not most, young people will not wait until marriage to have sex. Therefore, young people should be taught about safe sex. In particular, supporters of comprehensive sex education believe that young people must learn how to prevent pregnancy and STIs. Comprehensive sex education works, in partnership with parents and teachers, to promote the development of relevant personal and interpersonal skills. Supporters of comprehensive education also point to studies showing that giving teenagers more information about sex does not, in fact, increase their levels of sexual activity or lower the age at which teens first start having sex. In addition, advocates of comprehensive sex education have pointed to a body of research finding that abstinence-only programs do not effectively lower rates of teen pregnancy and STIs. Finally, critics of abstinence-only programs charge that some abstinence-only lesson plans contain medically inaccurate information such as false statistics about the effectiveness of condom use in preventing pregnancy. As comprehensive education programs only continued to expand curricula into the twenty-first century to be more inclusive and holistic, debate continued over whether such an approach was appropriate in schools versus abstinence-only instruction or focusing more narrowly on factual risk prevention, which would still include a discussion of abstinence.

While the type and scope of sex education provided in schools would seem a community choice based on values and mores, sex education curriculum and policy has also been tied to school funding.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton’s welfare reform package included nationally instituted abstinence-only programs. The Title V abstinence education program was a central part of the original 1996 welfare reform act officially called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). Title V distributed money to states that adhere to certain requirements such as barring teachers from discussing contraception and requiring all public school teachers to say that sex within marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity.

Additionally, the federal government invested billions of dollars in abstinence-only curricula through such programs as the Adolescent Family Life Act (1981). Some states, such as Maine and California, have refused federal funding because accepting some forms of funding limits the type of sex education schools can offer to abstinence-only programs and mandates that schools discourage students from engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage.

At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided large sums of funding for sex education that focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention; states and schools that accepted this funding were supposed to follow CDC guidelines that lean toward comprehensive sex education.

Despite the control that the Title V abstinence program exerted on sex education in public schools across the country until 2009, the federal government provided funds for a wide range of sex education and contraception. For instance, the federal government has supported contraceptive programs to prevent pregnancy and STIs through Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Title X Family Planning, Indian Health Service funding, the Division of Adolescent School Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Social Services Block Grant, the Community Coalition Partnership Program for the Prevention of Teen Pregnancy, and the Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant. In 2010, the Office of Adolescent Health’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative began offering the most funding to sex education programs and only to those that selected one of thirty-five evidence-based intervention (EBI) programs. However, funding for abstinence-only programs that had not been demonstrated to improve teen health outcomes on pregnancy or disease transmission continued to receive funding, and the EBI programs did not necessarily take into account critical psychological, cultural, or identity influences on teen behavior.

Concern had also increased over whether existing sex education curricula adequately addressed the needs of LGBTQ youth. In 2010, federal funding guidelines urged (but did not require) that sex education include LGBTQ students. By 2013, however, eight states explicitly prohibited LGBTQ-inclusive curricula in any subject. Several studies published between 2013 and 2015 found that LGBTQ teens were often excluded from sex education discourse. Abstinence-only programs tend to present a narrow definition of sex, emphasize sex within marriage (historically unavailable to LGBTQ people), and omit anything other than normative heterosexual activity. Portraying heterosexual attraction and behaviors as normal or natural and linking LGBTQ people to social ills such as pedophilia are other ways in which sex education curricula may alienate LGBTQ youth. National guidelines developed in 2012 recommended that the concept of gender identity be introduced in elementary school and explored in middle school, and that sexual orientation be discussed in middle and high school. According to a 2014 Journal of Sex Research study, LGBTQ youths would prefer greater focus on creating healthy relationships and on preventing STI transmission, rather than on preventing pregnancy. In 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada, a local LGBTQ center began providing free sex education classes to high schoolers in light of complaints that the district schools’ abstinence-oriented program was too superficial and uninformative. Some recommended digital media supplements or young-adult books as supplements or enhancements to existing sex education curriculum.

Sex Education in Schools Today

The overall picture of sex education policy in the United States remained extremely complex because specific curricula continued to differ widely from state to state, district to district, and even school to school. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to sexual and reproductive health, by November 2024 thirty-six states and the District of Columbia required the teaching of sex education and/or HIV education. However, curriculum requirements for medical accuracy, age-appropriateness, and cultural sensitivity continued to vary greatly, and parents could withdraw their students from sex or HIV education classes in several states. Contemporary debates over the issue have often focused more on specific points of controversy within sex education curricula, such as what to teach students about long-standing social issues like sexual orientation, abortion, and sexual consent.

By the 2020s, some school districts in the US had begun to adopt and implement even more expansive, holistic comprehensive sex education curricula designed for inclusivity, although such decisions still often sparked debate and even protests. As high-profile social justice movements continued to raise awareness of a need for increased consideration of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of society, many schools added LGBTQ topics to their sex education curricula, while others took measures to ban or restrict inclusive instruction. By 2024, according to Guttmacher, ten states and DC required inclusive content regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, while six states required a positive emphasis on heterosexuality and a cisgender identity and/or a negative emphasis on same-sex sexuality. In 2024 six states prohibited discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity or restricted such discussion to certain age groups.

At the same time, the #MeToo movement had brought renewed focus on educating students about consent and sexual violence. In 2024, the Weitzman Institute reported that thirty-seven states and DC had at least one law mandating addressing teen dating violence in schools. According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council, by that point twelve states required that sex education cover the importance of consent. The approach to teaching consent also differed, with some schools setting the increasingly advocated affirmative consent, or a knowing, voluntary, and mutual decision to engage in sexual activity, as the standard. It had also been widely reported by that time that the teen birth rate in the United States had long been in decline. According to the CDC, the teen birth rate in 2021 was 14 per 1,000 girls and women between the ages of fifteen and nineteen.

Bibliography

"About Teen Pregnancy." CDC, 15 May 2024, www.cdc.gov/reproductive-health/teen-pregnancy/. Accessed 16 Jan. 2025.

Associated Press. “LGBT Center Teaches Students Sex Ed.” AP Regional State Report - Nevada, 21 May 2015, knpr.org/knpr/2015-05-21/lgbt-center-teaches-students-sex-ed. Accessed 27 Oct. 2015.

Ciurczak, Ellen. “Sex Education: A Lesson for in or out of the Classroom?” Hattiesburg American, Gannett, 5 Mar. 2011.

Contorno, Steve. "Florida Bans Teaching of Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation through 12th Grade." CNN, 19 Apr. 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/04/19/politics/florida-bans-teaching-gender-identity-sexual-orientation/index.html. Accessed 16 May 2024.

"Detailed Insights on U.S. Sex Education Policies." SIECUS, siecus.org/siecus-state-profiles/. Accessed 16 Jan. 2025.

Gelperin, Nora E., and Elizabeth Schroeder. “Future of Sex Education.” Journal of School Health, vol. 78, no. 11, 2008, pp. 573–73.

Gowen, L. Kris, and Nichole Winges-Yanez. “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Questioning Youths’ Perspectives of Inclusive School-Based Sexuality Education.” Journal of Sex Research, vol. 51, no. 7, 2014, pp. 788–800.

Grossman, Jennifer M., et al. “Family Homework and School-Based Sex Education: Delaying Early Adolescents’ Sexual Behavior.” Journal of School Health, vol. 83, no. 11, 2013, pp. 810–17.

Juarez, Tonantzin, et al. "Teen Dating Violence: What Schools Can Do to Prevent It." Weitzman Institute, 2 Feb. 2024, www.weitzmaninstitute.org/teen-dating-violence-what-schools-can-do-to-prevent-it/. Accessed 16 Jan. 2025.

Kendall, Nancy. The Sex Education Debates. U of Chicago P, 2012.

Lamb, Sharon. “Just the Facts? The Separation of Sex Education from Moral Education.” Educational Theory, vol. 63, no. 5, 2013, pp. 443–60.

Martin, S., R. Rector, and M. Pardue. Comprehensive Sex Education vs. Authentic Abstinence: A Study of Competing Curricula. Heritage Foundation, 2004.

McGarry, Robert. “Build a Curriculum That Includes Everyone.” Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 94, no. 5, 2013, pp. 27–31.

Nade, Sophia. "State Lawmakers Say Yes to Consent Education." Guttmacher Institute, 15 Jan. 2020, www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/01/state-lawmakers-say-yes-consent-education. Accessed 28 Sept. 2022.

Schalet, Amy, et al. “Invited Commentary: Broadening the Evidence for Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Education in the United States.” Journal of Youth & Adolescence, vol. 43, no. 10, 2014 p. 1595.

"Sex Education and HIV Education." Guttmacher Institute, 27 Nov. 2024, www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/sex-and-hiv-education. Accessed 16 Jan. 2025.

Strasburger, Victor C., and Sarah S. Brown. “Sex Education in the 21st Century.” JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 312, no. 2, 2014, pp. 125–26.