The inconvenient truth about compulsory sex education
by Professor David Paton, The Conservative Woman:
We already know that schools in England, including primaries, will soon have compulsory relationships and sex education (SRE) forced upon them. However, the Government is yet to reveal the extent to which schools will be forced to follow the explicit, values-free approach to SRE for which the usual suspects from the sex education industry have been busy lobbying.
Groups such as the Sex Education Forum and FPA often claim that their promotion of so-called ‘Comprehensive Sex Education’ (or CSE) is ‘evidence-based’. I wonder what they make of a new study from the Institute for Research & Evaluation (IRE) which takes a forensic look at the evidence relating to CSE programmes in the US and elsewhere.
It covers the impact of CSE on a range of outcomes including reductions in teen pregnancy, (STIs, or, in the US, STDs), delayed sexual activity and contraceptive use. The findings are striking.
The study is clear that there is no evidence of sustained reductions in teen pregnancy or STDs from CSE programmes. It reports that there were a few initial findings of increased levels of abstinence and condom use, but ‘evidence from multiple replication studies did not confirm most of the original positive results’. Even worse, some programmes had negative outcomes such as increased rates of teenage sex or teenage pregnancy.
It concludes:
‘The research evidence indicates that CSE has essentially been ineffective in . . . classrooms and has produced a concerning number of negative outcomes.’
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
