National Sexuality Education Standards: Can their current value be enhanced?

1. National Sexuality Education Standards: Can their current value be enhanced? Dan Dowhower

2. Introduction • December of 2008, forty experts a two-day meeting = National Sexuality Education Standards • Essential minimum, core content for sexuality education that is developmentally and age-appropriate for students in grades Kindergarten through grade 12 • Content and skills subject areas of Anatomy and Physiology, Puberty and Adolescent Development, Identity, Pregnancy and Reproduction, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV, Healthy Relationships, and Personal Safety . • A median total of 17.2 hours is devoted to instruction in HIV, pregnancy and STD prevention: 3.1 hours in elementary, 6 hours in middle and 8.1 hours in high school.  

3. Areas of Concern • Utilizing individual level theory that assumes adolescents have the motivation and opportunity to reproduce these behaviors outside of the school setting • Present standards generally subscribe to a rational model of decision-making and assume all individuals respond similarly to the same kind of messages • Standards place the complete onus of responsibility on the school system for teaching sexuality education and discount the value of family and community involvement • Standards are written as a one size-fits-all

4. Scope of Problem • 1 in 16 black men and 1 in 30 black women will be diagnosed with HIV infection over the course of their lifetime (CDC, 2010) • African Americans account for only 13.4% of the U.S. population. • Black teens (13-19) account for 69% of the 38% of infected African American. • Current research efforts demonstrate that social norms, social networks and gender roles need to be address to mitigate the impact of this epidemic • The current standards are a silo and only address the epidemic unidimensionally. • As one begins to unpack how HIV infection is distributed within the black community it is clear that interventions will have to be multi-level and tailored

5. So where do we go from here? • Triadic Theory of Influence – overlay a new theoretical framework to enhance current effort • Recognize the full context of health behavior • Individual Stream: • Go beyond the function of sexuality and understand the role of sex for adolescents • Social Stream: • Family – a major role in adolescent lives • Peer – support the role of sex • Role Models are highly valued • Cultural Stream • Religion – highly influential but variable • Oppression and Discrimination – has been argued to influence role of sex • Policy – a general influence due to it’s great variability across states

6. A Triadic Set of Standards • Development of translation plan • Minimum standards for school curricula • Minimum standards for family, peer and community engagement • Minimum standards for policy and recognition of critical extraneous variables such as oppression and discrimination

7. Examples of State Policy Variablity • According to the Guttamacher Institute (2012), there is great variability across state policy and requirements around sex education. • only 12 states require that the sex education instruction be medically accurate, • 8 states require that the program provide instruction that is appropriate for a student’s cultural background and not be biased against any race, sex or ethnicity, • 35 states and DC allow parents to remove their children from instruction.