Introduction to Should Sex Education Be Taught in Schools?

Annotated Bibliography

Talesha Binns

GEN/499

February 22nd 2016

Instructor: Susan Luck

Introduction to Should Sex Education be taught in Schools

For my final project I will be talking about whether sex education should be taught in schools. When thinking about sex education so many uncomfortable moments as a young teenager comes to mind when I had to sit in a classroom with peers and hear the teacher talk about things that we normal joked about with friends but never any adults. But things have really changed since then. When trying to define the meaning of sex education to me there are so many ways to define it. In my opinion I think sex education is defined as processing important information on attitudes and beliefs about sex itself, sexual identity, relationships and intimacy. Therefore throughout this essay you will get a clear understanding on whether sex education should be taught to the students as abstinence-only education versus comprehensive sex education in the schools.  I feel that this is a great deal and it should be addressed to support the needs of everyone.  

Thesis Statement: “Should sex education be taught as abstinence-only education or comprehensive sex education in schools”

Even though having sex information is so readily available, teens may begin to think sex is something that everyone's doing, and it isn't a big deal., sex education should be taught in schools because it provide students with medically accurate information about both abstinence and contraception, including condoms and because these classes can have an impact on the prevention of sexual problems in adulthood.

Annotated Bibliography’s

Curvino, M., & Fischer, M. G. (2014). Claiming comprehensive sex education is a right does not make it so: a close reading of international law. The New Bioethics: A Multidisciplinary Journal Of Biotechnology And The Body, 20(1), 72-98

Curvino and Fischer article talks about an international community that is debating whether international law requires states to educate adolescents about their sexuality. It also talks about whether comprehensive sex education should be provided in schools. The article relates to my topic because I believe that comprehensive should be the one being taught in schools because you don’t want to cut important topics out. See with the abstinence-only education the children are only getting parts of what is sex education and how it can save and help a person’s life. That is why in my personal opinion I think both should be taught and gives the children the chance to know about both.

Stanger-Hall, K. F., & Hall, D. W. (2011). Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S. Plos ONE, 6(10), 1-11. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.002465

Stanger-Hall and Hall articles talks about whether the investment the government has made for the abstinence-only education program is a really working and whether it should continue. They conducted a national studied hat shows that increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively working in their favor when dealing with teen pregnancy and birth rates. Therefore with increase, the data collected clearly shows that with abstinence-only education being taught the state feels that it is ineffective in helping prevent teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S. This article relates to my thesis on so many levels because I feel that without sex education in schools the children will be lost and feel that sex is a something that they must do it fit in or consider themselves an adult.