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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2005 > October > 07 > Entry
Sex in Ohio despite abstinence class
There was an interesting story in Education Week last month about Ohio middle school kids who had gone through an abstinence program.
(Note: if you are not an Ed Week subscriber, you’ll need to register as a guest to view this story. You can also view the study results at the American Journal of Health Behavior where it was published.)
Case Western Reserve researchers followed up with Cleveland (city and suburban) kids who had gone through the For Keeps program, which trains kids to abstain from sex until marriage. They found the kids in the program engaged in sexual activity at about the same rate as kids who did not have the program.
However, they did find kids who already had sex before they had the program had sex with fewer partners after participating in For Keeps than did those kids who never had the program.
School is a good place to provide kids with information they’ll need in life. But some of what schools do gets pretty far afield from their primary mission of imparting academic skills.
What to teach kids about sex in school is a tough question. Should schools teach abstinence only like this program or more practical lessons about condoms and sexually transmitted disease? Or should this be taught in school at all?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Sex Education
Comments
By Muriel
October 7, 2005 10:20 PM | Link to this
Abstinence only education doesn’t work. Studies show that kids who abstain from intercourse, actually experiement more as far as other sexual activity goes. Just because they aren’t having sex, does not take away the risk of STIs. Schools should teach kids about the risks, the benefits and everything in between. Sure, abstinence is a viable option and provided you are truly abstaining from sexual activity, it’s 100% effective at preventing pregnancy, diseases and infections, and it should be one of the options that students are taught. But don’t refuse to tell them about condoms or the pill because you think that knowing how to put a condom on is going to make kids have sex (which by the way, it won’t). There are kids who will not have sex until they are married. But there are also kids who are going to have sex before then and they should be prepared and have the information to protect themselves at their disposal.