“Engaging Diversity: Sex Education for All in California” an article included in the book The Sex Education Debates begins by discussing the sex education provided at Jefferson High a school located in California before the California Healthy Youth Act was passed; when the decision to provide comprehensive sex education was up to the district and was not mandated. Jefferson High is located in a racially, economically, ethnically, and liberally inclined district. This school was chosen to be studied as it aligned ideologically at the community, district, and state levels.
Sex education at Jefferson was provided during science by a non-profit, private sex education program. This school is similar to the two schools I am studying, the main difference being that the schools I am observing at are required now by the CHYA to provide medically accurate, comprehensive sex education and are not aligned at all levels. Using a private sex education program allowed the educator to increase the presence of discussion and debate in the classroom, as they were less constrained by social expectation than a teacher would be teaching sex ed curriculum. The program taught in both English and Spanish, which is not an option given to the schools I am observing at, although the program educators were not all fully fluent in Spanish and often struggled to provide bilingual curriculum. For students who did not speak English or Spanish, did not often participate in class. The teachers, ill prepared to instruct sex ed curriculum, did not participate in class room sessions.
“The instructors made use of a variety of pedagogical ap-proaches in the classrooms I observed: mini-lectures, small and large group discussions, and individual work; an anonymous question box; distribution of information pamphlets; and quizzes on local reproductive-health and human-sexuality resources. Many of these pedagogical tools were standard-ized across the classes and designed to provide students with opportunities to ask questions, talk with each other, and participate in student-led classroom activities. All four classes jointly attended a teen-mothers’ panel”
The curriculum is accurate and science based and meant to empower the students to seek out additional resources by providing them with options to research. The students are presented with unbiased and factual information, although sex positivity is not presented. Teen sex is viewed not as a bad thing, but as something that has bad outcomes. Students are pushed to accept this belief. Students were instructed about, “decision making in relationships; the effects of pregnancy on future plans; the “plain facts” about STIs; basic knowledge about a range of contraceptive devices and their ef-fectiveness in preventing pregnancy and /or STIs; information about post-pregnancy options (keeping the baby, adoption, abortion); and general in-formation about sexual identity.Come On In! and Emily made assumptions about what constituted these issues, their importance in teens’ lives, and teens’ common misconceptions about them. The assumptions were shaped by mainstream scientifi c stud-ies and their conceptualizations of the problems and solutions these studies identified.”
There were marked differences in the educators approach and the lessons taught in the higher education track classes and the lower education tracks which often included English Language Learners.
Kendall, Nancy. The Sex Education Debates. University of Chicago Press, 2012. EBSCOhost.