True or False: Young people in the United States are more likely to learn about sexuality sitting in classrooms than anywhere else. If you said true, think again. Mounting evidence from researchers, media professionals, service providers and policy advocates suggests otherwise. Are we now experiencing a paradigm shift in the geography of "sex ed"? Absolutely, and thankfully, there's no going back.
Yesterday I attended a Guttmacher Institute webinar entitled, "Where Do Young People Learn About Sexual Health?: Education Beyond the Classroom." Panelists included Guttmacher Institute's own Senior Research Associate, Dr. Rachel Jones; Dr. Kate Ott, Associate Director of the Religious Institute for Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing; Jennifer Weidenbaum, Associate Director of Girls, Inc NYC; and William Juzang, VP of Business Development for MEE Productions. Dr. John Santelli, Chair of the Population and Family Health Department at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health presided as moderator.
According to new research not yet published by Dr. Jones, many young people are learning about sexual health from the following primary sources beyond the classroom: parents, friends, television, radio, advertising, magazines, internet, doctors and religious groups. One of her most interesting findings has to do with the discovery that teens are overwhelmingly tolerant of other teens' decisions to either be abstinent or sexually active.
According to Dr. Ott, faith communities are teaching young people about sexual health in explicit and implicit ways nation wide and young people are listening. Some denominations, such as the Unitarian Universalist Church, have gone so far as to produce lifelong faith based sexuality curricula (Our Whole Lives) while others continue, for better or worse, to teach more implicitly about sexuality through messages (often about waiting until marriage) in sermons, prayers and even, notably, through complete silence on the subject. Dr. Ott's point that parents often trust their faith communities in ways that they could never trust public schools relays the current and potential significance faith communities can have in educating young people about sex.
Jennifer Weidenbaum discussed the Girls' Inc approach to educating young women about sexual health. Girls, Inc sees parents, grandparents and other adults in primary caretaker roles as the number one source of sexual health information for young women. And Girls, Inc sees itself as their partners. Because of this, Girls, Inc holds workshops helping to coach parents and their young people into better, more open communication skills around sexual health.
William Juzang of MEE Productions discussed how his organization focuses on the goal of getting young people to do effective and persuasive peer level dialogue and sharing based on accurate, community relevant sexual health evidence. MEE does this via massive, large scale public education campaigns utilizing everything from radio and tv public service announcements to holding community forums to engaging hundreds of community partners to help build dialogue that informs healthier sexuality outcomes for youth. MEE also very much believes in empowering parents and other adults to step into their role as sexuality educators by becoming as educated as they can so that they can teach other parents to effectively relay sexual health information with their youth.
At the end of the panel, it became clear that the typical high school classroom, although still critical in the overall process, is no longer the only primary source for sex ed. Panel moderator, Dr. John Santelli concluded the panel by arguing that even if we are able to achieve major sex ed policy changes in public schools in the years ahead, it will never be enough to stop there. The web, faith communities, mass media and other sites of sex ed are emerging as critical and in many cases are much more relevant to young people's lives.
In fact, ISIS, an organization leading the nation in providing innovative high tech solutions to sexual health education and STD/HIV prevention, and YPulse conducted a study recently of 1300 youth who say that their primary source for health information is the Web itself: http://www.isis-inc.org/in-print.php
NSRC could not agree more with expanding the geography (and content) of sex ed. A commitment to lifelong sexual literacy and the many modes of evidence (and faith) based learning that it entails should start when people are young and never end until they die. One of the greatest flaws of the old paradigm of school classroom only based sex ed (in addition to reproducing multiple social inequalities) is that it did not illicit from young people a deeper lifelong commitment to sexual health learning and citizenship. Some of our current initiatives at NSRC confirm further the need for a more effective, lifelong sex ed outside the classroom: we are beginning to explore training elders and the staff who serve them within assisted living facilities, we're presenting on sexuality education at national conferences for young adult and adult activists in multiple social justice movements, we're assisting in training faith leaders through the internet and we're networking professionals, students and others who work in the field of sexuality studies on our social networking site, Dialogues.
Sex ed beyond the classroom, like Dr. Santelli argued, is the new front that we must all begin embracing as sexuality educators, researchers and others working in the field. We really have our work cut out for us. It is a far more complex terrain and will no doubt prove more relevant and healthy for all people, young and old alike. It already is.
