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The importance of sexual education
Implementation of Sexual Education
Essays on sexual education
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Widespread Ignorance About Safe Sex
Yet among India's 300 million young people ages 10 to 24, recent
studies show that premarital sex is increasingly common. A 2001 study
conducted in Delhi and the Lucknow (capital of India's most populous
state, Uttar Pradesh) by the National Institute of Health and Family
Welfare shows that some 15 percent of young people engage in
premarital sex, even though Indian society regards sex before marriage
as deviant behavior. The study, which included grade school and
college students, also revealed that despite a growing HIV/AIDS
epidemic, many young people have unprotected sex. Two common reasons
given by youth for not using condoms are that they are hesitant to
obtain them (39.3 percent) and fear side effects (34.3 percent),
according to the study "Premarital Sexuality and Unmet Need of
Contraception."
Ironically, even the veneer of modernity among the better-educated
middle- and upper-class youth can be misleading. In her 2001 research
work "Youth and HIV/AIDS in India," Allison Drynan observes that a
worry commonly expressed by sexuality educators in New Delhi is that
"middle-upper-class youth" are less receptive to information than
"middle-lower-class youth."
Drynan, who gathered information on youth issues as part of a program
sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA),
attributed this widespread ignorance to an absence of uniformly
established sexual and reproductive health education in schools.
Educators she surveyed also pointed out that middle/upper-class youths
falsely perceived their awareness of "Western sexual behaviors"
?gained through the media ?as awareness of their own sexuality.
This lack of access to reliable information is especially alarming
given the high number of HIV/AIDS cases in India. With a population of
more than 1 billion, even a comparatively low adult HIV prevalence
rate (0.8 percent) translates into large numbers of infections. Thus,
at the end of 2001, an estimated 3.97 million adults and children were
living with the virus, according to the National AIDS Control
Organization (NACO). This number exceeds that of any other country
except South Africa, where some 5.
Have you ever realized that the world you live in was not the same anymore? Like something is wrong, but you can never quite figure out why? This is what I felt after reading “America’s War on Sex” by Dr. Martin Klein. While reading this book I learned many different things about organization that do everything in their power to stop freedom of sexual expression.
Sex Education. (2010). In Current Issues: Macmillan social science library. Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com.byui.idm.oclc.org/ic/ovic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?query=&prodId=OVIC&contentModules=&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&disableHighlighting=true&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&action=2&catId=GALE%7C00000000LVZ0&activityType=&documentId=GALE%7CPC3021900154&source=Bookmark&u=byuidaho&jsid=97f094e06dbbf5f2bcaec07adbde8e61
Today’s young Americans face strong peer pressure to be sexually active and engage themselves in risky behaviors (Merino 100-109). Anyone deciding to have sex must first think about all the risks involved. Kekla Magoon, author of Sex Education in Schools, says that “half of all teens aged 15 to 19 years old in the United States have had sex” (Magoon 64-65). It is currently not required by federal law for schools to teach Sex education and those few schools that do teach Sex education have the decision to determine how much information is allowed. Advocates from both sides of the Sex education debate agree that teens need positive influences in order to make practical decisions (Magoon 88-89). Opponents of Abstinence-only education believe it fails because it does not prepare teens for all the risks of sex (Magoon 64-65).
The health belief model (HBM) is a psychosocial model that was developed during the 1950’s by social psychologists of the U.S public health services, and this model was used to explain why people failed to participate in disease prevention and detection programs. The theory is one of the most health behavior theories, which is used to explain behavior change and maintenances, but often times used to predict behavior outcome (Glanze, Rimer, & Lewis, 2002).
The two most important topics for a junior high sex education curriculum I think would be abstinence and abortion. Teens these days are struggling in a world that tells us sex is necessary for people who are dating. As a result, many teens give in to their desires and the pressures and engage in sexual relationships. This occurs from early to late adolescence and beyond. Supporting teens' choices, schools teach "safe sex." In my school a group was brought in to demonstrate for the entire school how to put on a condom, using a microphone. This turned into a joke, no one taking it seriously. Even so, it is a horrible example. We have to teach the kids abstinence is the only way to prevent the large problems of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. I can recall that abstinence was mentioned as a side-note as the only 100% guarantee against these two problems. It is a mixed message delivered when teens are given condoms in school that are only about 60% effective, but told that abstinence is the only prevention. Abstinence is the only total prevention, so America's schools must stop promoting ways that try to block pregnancy and STDs. Abortion is my second important topic. Adolescents are growing more and more careless in their sexual behavior and that has led to growing pregnancy rates. Many of them have decided to terminate the pregnancy and the child's life. The physical and emotional harm that abortions cause would have to be addressed, because not many are well informed in that area. A recent talk show that had a man refusing to believe that he was the father of his girlfriend's daughter because he "only conceives males." It is...
During the 1980s, efforts increased to alert the public to the dangers of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and unintended pregnancy, yet these problems have increased. Adolescents and young adults have been especially hard hit. Pregnancy and birth rates among teenagers are at their highest levels in two decades.
A study conducted on teens in Sweden and the Netherlands showed that teens in those countries were just as sexually active, but the teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease rate was much lower. Researchers say this is due to sex education that begins in elementary school and continues on(Bender p.13). Only ten percent of American school-age youth participate in a comprehensive program lasting at least forty hours(deMauro p.89). Teens in America also score low on questionnaires based on sexual knowledge(Gordon p.
However, Advocates for Youth Researchers studied the National Survey of Family Growth to determine the impact of sexuality education on youth sexual risk-taking for young people ages 15-19, and found that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to experience pregnancy than those who received abstinence-only education (Kohler et al 2008). Proving that comprehensive programs do not increase teen pregnancy, but rather have the potential to significantly decrease it. Although teen pregnancy in the U.S has declined in recent years, the teen birth rate remains higher than in most other developed countries at 26.5 per 1,000 in youths aged 15-19 (CDC 2013). This illustrates the need for action. Comprehensive sexuality education will teach these teens the how to prevent pregnancy and could potentially lower these numbers. Empowering teens with pregnancy knowledge is only one of the many benefits of comprehensive sexuality education, but providing life-saving information to teens about STD’s is vitally important as
Sex before marriage has always been a major issue. Teen pregnancy seems to double yearly: with no sign of stopping. Some teens use contraceptives and birth control incorrectly. They think pregnancy just can’t happen to them. In a lot of cases their embarrassed to buy protection or just simply unsure of how to use them. Many unplanned pregnancies happen beca...
Shrestha, Rachana Manandhar, et al. "Better Learning In Schools To Improve Attitudes Toward Abstinence And Intentions For Safer Sex Among Adolescents In Urban Nepal." BMC Public Health 13.1 (2013): 1-10. Academic Search Complete. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
Teenage pregnancy is an important and a widespread problem in India revolving to public health studies. Although, in India minimum age of marriage for a female is 18 and male is 22, the law is not been strictly followed by the society. It is now leading to serious social and medical troubles such as maternal and child health problems. Data of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 discovered that 16% of women, aged 15-19 years, have already started childbearing. Most of the teenage mother in India has a joint family background. They are not allowed to take any decisions according to their desires. Their life is been shaped by family me...
Since the 1970s, many countries in the world the problem of adolescent sexuality and first sexual experience at young age appeared. To make matters worse, the trend of adolescent pregnancy became increasingly serious. From the fact sheet of World Health Organization, there are about 16 million adolescent girls giving birth every year – most in low- and middle-income countries. Among them, an estimated three million girls aged 15-19 undergo unsafe abortions every year. In low- and middle-income countries, over 30% of girls marry before they are 18 years of age; around 14% before the age of 15 and complications from pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among girls aged 15-19 years.
The emergence of HIV/AIDS is viewed globally as one of the most serious health and developmental challenges our society faces today. Being a lentivirus, HIV slowly replicates over time, attacking and wearing down the human immune system subsequently leading to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) at which point the affected individual is exposed to life threatening illnesses and eventual death. Despite the fact that a few instances of this disease have been accounted for in all parts of the world, a high rate of the aforementioned living with HIV are situated in either low or medium wage procuring nations. The Sub-Saharan region Africa is recognized as the geographic region most afflicted by the pandemic. In previous years, people living with HIV or at risk of getting infected did not have enough access to prevention, care and treatment neither were they properly sensitized about the disease. These days, awareness and accessibility to all the mentioned (preventive methods, care etc.) has risen dramatically due to several global responses to the epidemic. An estimated half of newly infected people are among those under age 25(The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic). It hits hard as it has no visible symptoms and can go a long time without being diagnosed until one is tested or before it is too late to manage.
“Forty-one percent of teens ages 18-19 said they know nothing about condoms, and seventy-five percent said they know nothing about the contraceptive pill” (Facts on American Teens). Even if schools taught just abstinence it still would not be enough. “In 2007, a study showed that abstinence only programs have no beneficial impact on the sexual behavior of young people” (Facts on American Teens). Sex education is not taken as seriously as it should be in schools, it is treated like it is not a big deal. Schools should require a sex education class that specifically teaches students about sex and goes into depth of all the possible consequences because of the high pregnancy, abortion, and virus rates.
“In 1986, then U. S. Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, published a report calling for sex education, including information on preventing the transmission of HIV virus through safe sex, to be instituted in public schools starting at elementary level. And, by 1988, 90 percent of all the schools in the nation offered some form of sex education program.” Although, sex education was introduced to children in school, it was not until the introduction of social media the rate of teen pregnancy has reduced. Today, the government agencies such as the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has introduced easy to use tools to communicate with the teens for this purpose via Facebook and Twitter as it believes in delivering the message through these