THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION: PROGRESS IN THE AREA OF SEX EDUCATION
Perhaps most disturbing of all is the lack of progress in the area of sex education. The rationale underlying the efforts of sex educators is that a firm foundation of sexual knowledge will provide the kind of information that will enable people to make sexually responsible decisions based on fact and a positive appreciation of one's sexuality. Typically, the impact of sex education techniques is measured in terms of changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. In terms of these measures, sex education efforts have been shown to be moderately effective in improving knowledge with selected populations. However, they have had little durable impact on sexual attitudes and sexual behavior (Eisenberg and Kinder, 1979). For example, in one study, college women who had applied for abortion counseling revealed that over seventy percent of them had not engaged in birth control techniques at the time of conception, despite exposure to a sex education course that emphasized contraceptive practices and despite the availability of contraceptive services at their college health center (Monsour and Stewart, 1973). Similar results have been reported by other investigators (Spanier, 1976). Even those cases that claim that sex education has improved attitudes or constructively changed sexual behavior can be called into question because of inadequate scientific methods (Eisenberg and Kinder, 1979). It would appear, then, that even where sex education courses can overcome public and official hostility, their impact is sadly unimpressive. The challenge of the eighties, then, may well be the development of those educational programs that will indeed bring the sexual revolution to a successful resolution by providing more effective sex education.
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