Sex education

Sex education

• 1.
  SEX EDUCATION
• 2.
   Sex educationis instruction on issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, age of consent, reproductive health, reproductive rights, safe sex, birth control and sexual abstinence. Sex education that covers all of these aspects is known as comprehensive sex education. Common avenues for sex education are parents or caregivers, formal school programs, and public health campaigns.
• 3.
   Traditionally, adolescentsin many cultures were not given any information on sexual matters, with the discussion of these issues being considered taboo. Such instruction, as was given, was traditionally left to a child's parents, and often this was put off until just before a child's marriage. The progressive education movement of the late 19th century, however, led to the introduction of "social hygiene" in North American school curricula and the advent of school-based sex education.
• 4.
   The outbreakof AIDS has given a new sense of urgency to sex education. In many African countries, where AIDS is at epidemic levels (see HIV/AIDS in Africa), sex education is seen by most scientists as a vital public health strategy.
• 5.
   Some internationalorganizations such as Planned Parenthood consider that broad sex education programs have global benefits, such as controlling the risk of overpopulation and the advancement of women's rights (see also reproductive rights). The use of mass media campaigns has sometimes resulted in high levels of "awareness" coupled with essentially superficial knowledge of HIV transmission.
• 6.
   According toSIECUS, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, 93% of adults they surveyed support sexuality education in high school and 84% support it in junior high school.
• 9.
   in fact,88% of parents of junior high school students and 80% of parents of secondary school students believe that sex education in school makes it easier for them to talk to their adolescents about sex.
• 10.
   Also, 92%of adolescents report that they want both to talk to their parents about sex and to have comprehensive in-school sex education.
• 11.
   Furthermore, a"study, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research on behalf of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, found that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are ineffective."
• 13.
   Research hasidentified highly effective sex education and HIV prevention programs that affect multiple behaviors and/or achieve positive health impacts. Behavioral outcomes have included delaying the initiation of sex as well as reducing the frequency of sex, the number of new partners, and the incidence of unprotected sex, and/or increasing the use of condoms and contraception among sexually active participants.[4,5,6,7] Long-term impacts have included lower STI and/or pregnancy rates. [4,5,6,7]
• 14.
   No highlyeffective sex education or HIV prevention education program is eligible for federal funding because mandates prohibit educating youth about the benefits of condoms and contraception.[13]