1. Culture wars in South Australia: the sex education debates.
- Author
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Peppard, Judith
- Subjects
- *
CULTURE conflict , *SEX education , *FAMILY life education , *EDUCATION policy , *SOCIAL policy , *SOCIAL problems , *SOCIAL conflict , *APPLIED sociology - Abstract
School sexuality education has been a component of Australia's successful and internationally recognized HIV/AIDS strategy since the 1980s and has been well accepted in the community. However South Australia is experiencing a re-emergence of opposition to school sexuality education orchestrated by groups associated with the United States-based Christian Right. In this paper I will outline sex education policy developments in Australia and the United States as a framework for discussing the controversy generated around the Sexual Health and Relationships Education (SHARE) program in South Australia in 2003. In doing so I give attention to the similarities between the strategies deployed by the opponents of SHARE and those used to install abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education as national policy in the United States. I will argue that, rather than a phenomenon indigenous to South Australia, these debates are part of an international movement to progress the political goals of the Christian Right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
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