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Research has revealed that sex education policies are informed by national and local struggles over the meanings and consequences of gender, race, sexuality, and class categories. However, few studies have considered how policies are enacted in the classroom production of sex education to support or challenge gender, racial, sexual, and class hierarchies. This article draws on data obtained through semistructured in-depth interviews with 40 Latina youth (20 Mexican origin, 20 Puerto Rican) to explore how heteronormativity, sexism, and racism operate together to structure the content and delivery of school-based sex education. Findings suggest that some Latina youth encounter racialized heterogendered constructions and experiences that limit their access to sex-education-related information and reinforce existing inequalities. Keywords: adolescent; children; sexuality; race; class; gender; education

The purpose of the current study was to examine communication about sexual topics between preadolescents and their mothers and fathers. Participants were 135 African-American mothers, fathers, and their 9- to 12-year-old offspring. Each member of the triad completed a 10-item measure of communication about risk factors for sexual activity, sexual communication, and sexual risk prevention. A majority of parents and their preadolescents reported communication had occurred about most topics. Mothers and fathers were equally likely to communicate with sons whereas mothers were more likely to communicate with daughters than were fathers. Based on the study results, preadolescence may be the optimal time for parents to provide sexual risk prevention messages to their children before sexual behaviors are initiated. Keywords Preadolescent and parent communication * Sexuality African-Americans * Fathers

ABSTRACT This article looks at the origins of the family planning program in Egypt as a case study in the history of relations between the emerging community of international donors, [...]

The way in which Zambian youth encounter HIV/AIDS in their schools and communities and the way in which they demonstrate their agency in creating new language, identities and self-conceptions to reply to these encounters are presented. It is strongly felt that the role and delivery of schooling should be re-examined due to high teacher mortality, teacher misinformation and young people's exposure to the disease outside of schools.

As part of a larger survey study on young adult sexuality conducted over a 17-year period at a Midwest U.S. university, more than 6,000 college students completed questions on the sources of their sex education and the degree to which they have communicated about sex with various types of individuals. Participants reported receiving more sex education from peers and media than from parents (and mothers more than fathers). Respondents also reported communicating more about sex with peers than with parents or any other categories of individuals. Differences were found in the degree of sex education from various sources and in communication with various targets based on gender, ethnic background, and social class. Furthermore, changes were found over the 17-year period. More recent cohorts of students perceived that they received more sex education from media, peers, and professionals, and communicated more about sex with professionals, relative to earlier cohorts., A majority of adolescents initiate sexual activity by the time they reach age 18 (for a review, see Willetts, Sprecher, & Beck, 2004). Because teens generally are not consistent users [...]

Summary This article discusses the use of peer education to reduce sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, in young people. It describes experiences gained from a peer [...]

This article reports findings from a study conducted among 212 private motorbike-taxi riders, locally called bodabodamen, from two study sites--a slum area and the urban center of Masaka town. Qualitative and quantitative methods were triangulated; a questionnaire, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, case studies, and interactive workshops were all used. There were high levels of awareness of HIV, much more than sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), because many participants had closely experienced HIV/AIDS. Knowledge about sexual health contained several misconceptions, misinformation, and myths rooted in both the historical and contemporary social cultural context. Due to high illiteracy levels, bodabodamen cannot access many standard health education materials issued by government and private health organizations through the print and electronic media, as well as those published in languages other than the local vernacular. These (and possibly other) disadvantaged groups remain at risk of HIV and STDs. Especial efforts need to be made to provide appropriate health education. KEY WORDS: sexuality information; risk perceptions; masculinity.

Abstract: This essay presumes, perhaps controversially, that the student-teacher relationship is a potentially erotically charged relationship and the classroom is a potentially eroticized space. Further, to deny the relationship between […]

This study is an empirical investigation of how 175 university students obtained their knowledge of sexual matters and whether pornography functioned as an important source. Analysis indicated that pornography does not play an important role in the dissemination of sexual information; peers appear to be the primary source. There are, however, certain statistically significant differences between the sexes in reports of the extent of specific sexual information from pornography on matters such as oral and anal intercourse. The findings extend research on pornography as a source of sex information and are contrasted with previous studies.

Two field studies using 1,004 'lost letters' were designed to test the hypotheses that returned responses would be greater in small towns than from a city, that addressees' affiliation with a group either (1) opposed to physical education in schools, (2) supporting gay and lesbian teachers, or (3) advocating Creationism or Darwinism would reduce the return rate. Of 504 letters 'lost' in Study A, 163 (32.3%) were returned in the mail from residents of southeast Louisiana and indicated across 3 addressees and 2 sizes of community, addressees' affiliations were not associated with returned responses. Community size and addressees' affiliations were associated with significantly different rates of return in the city. Return rates from sites within a city were lower when letters were addressed to an organization which opposed (teaching) health education in the schools than to one supporting daily health education. Of 500 letters 'lost' in Study B, 95 (19.0%) were returned from residents of northwest Florida and indicated across 5 addressees and 2 sizes of community, addressees' affiliations were significantly associated with returned responses overall (5 addressees) and in small towns (control, Creationism, Darwinism addressees), but not with community size. Community size and addressees' affiliations were associated with significantly different rates of return in small towns, with returns greater than or equal to those in the city (except for the addressee advocating teaching Darwinism in public schools). The present findings appear to show that applications of the lost letter technique to other divisive social issues are useful in assessing public opinion.

The sexual values and norms transmitted to adolescents through school-based sexuality education programs have been noted and critiqued by an interdisciplinary pool of researchers. With the increasing availability of the Internet to many American adolescents, the opportunities it provides for discreet and independent exploration, and the virtual lack of regulation of information provided by web sites, the Internet is emerging as a unique and critical site of sexuality education. This work analyzes the values and norms transmitted to adolescents via 52 sexuality education web sites, drawing parallels to its school-based counterpart and interrogating the reliance of all forms of sexuality education on a problem-focused, gendered, and narrowly-bounded discourse of adolescent sexuality., Given the increasing accessibility of the Internet and the opportunities it provides many adolescents to independently seek out sex-related information, sexuality education web sites are adding another, as yet unexplored, [...]

Author's Abstract, COPYRIGHT 1999, Elsevier Science Ltd Prevention approaches for reproductive health have evolved from an emphasis on individually focused models of behavior change to a recognition that risk reduction occurs within a context of social norms. Prevention programs can be improved by understanding how social structure influences sexual behavior and using that understanding to develop strategies for positive change. In a dynamic, urban context, communities are better conceptualized as informal networks of ties. These network structures may help to protect, or conversely, expose members to reproductive risk behaviors. Using data from a study of social and sexual networks conducted in northern Thailand, this article describes partner relations and social structure in the modern, urban context, and illustrates the links between individual, relational and structural properties and reproductive risk behaviors. Triangulation of ethnographic, survey and social network data collection and analytic tools provide an opportunity to interpret individual behaviors, meanings of relationships and structural properties of networks. Intervention approaches should build on existing networks and address the complex meanings of romantic and sexual partnerships. Keywords: Reproductive health; HIV/AIDS; Social networks; Thailand

This article closely reads a single protest by a small group of male high school students in Mexico City, 1934. The protestors interrupted a movie to voice their opposition to sex education in the public schools (a new program that had inspired widespread controversy but was never instituted). This protest represented wider tensions over post-Revolutionary modernization and urbanization, particularly in its effects on children and families. It marked the moment when these tensions ceased to focus on government policies directly and turned toward opposition to media representations of social transformations., One Saturday night in February 1934, three teenage boys - high school classmates - went to see an American movie playing in a Mexico City cinema. Between reels, they ran [...]

A total of 165 local controversies in sex education were reported in forty seven districts in the 1994-95 school year, an increase over the previous three years.New arguments have been raised by the opponents of sex education as per the observations of SIECUS. Abstinence-only programs are favored and fear-based curricula is propagated by the sex education opponents. Censorship of certain programs by sex education opponents is discussed. Success in efforts for promoting sex education are also reported.

The problem of adolescent childbearing in the US can be partially solved through sex education, career programs and child care programs for adolescent students. People should understand that adolescent pregnancies involve all types of population and not just minority ethnic groups. Research studies reveal that the majority of adolescent preganancies result from sexual contact between young adult males and adolescent females.

A North American sexuality trainer talks about the methods adopted to impart sexuality education in Africa where there is a wide gap between traditional culture and western ideas about sexuality. In conservative African society, open discussion about sexuality is taboo and sexuality education is, therefore, opposed. It is important that the educators do not impose their own cultural values and that they refrain from passing personal judgment on the various myths and attitudes about sexuality in Africa.

Sexuality issues in Japan are not discussed openly, contributing to the increase in HIV/AIDS cases among teenagers, teenage pregnancies and teenage abortions. Sexuality education about safer sex is condemned by the Unification Church and many others as most Japanese feel that the best way to stop the spread of the disease is to abstain from sex. However, the Ministry of Education aims at providing HIV/AIDS education in schools according to the specific needs of grade schools, middle schools and high schools.

Keywords * teenage pregnancy * community health services * family planning nursing ********** A steady stream of young women and girls visit walk-in centres for the morning-after pill. Could more [...]