curriculum guide

Important factors in choosing a sex education curriculum

Review of the abstinence-only curriculum most commonly used in Illinois

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What factors are important when choosing a sex education curriculum?

Comprehensiveness - Truly comprehensive sex education takes a broad approach to understanding and affecting positive human sexual behavior. It helps young people learn about human development, relationships, sexual behavior, sexual health, and how society and culture play a role in decision-making about sexual behavior.

Community "Fit" - To be effective, a sex education curriculum needs to fit the community. An appropriate curriculum could range from comprehensive education to sex education that is targeted to prevention of unintended pregnancy, HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Parents, youth , school officials and teachers, health professionals, and other interested partners should discuss how to choose the right curriculum for their community.

Tested Effectiveness - Some Programs would not be labeled comprehensive but have been proven effective in high quality research studies to lead to positive outcomes such as reduction in risk behaviors, unintended pregnancy, HIV, and sexually transmitted infections. For a list of nineteen such programs, see the "Science and Success" publication available at www.advocatesforyouth.org or call 1-202-419-3420

A Checklist of Further Considerations - When evaluating a potential curriculum, we recommend that you use the following checklist. It is based both on the experience of our organizations in the field of adolescent health and on "Ten Characteristics of Effective Sex and HIV Education Programs" from "Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy", by Douglas Kirby. This resource is available at www.teenpregnancy.org

Checklist for Selecting an Effective Sex Education Curriculum

Delivers and consistently reinforces the clear message that students should make the decision to either abstain from sexual activity or use condoms and other forms of contraception
Provides accurate information about the effectiveness of abstinence, contraception and condom use to reduce unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections including HIV
Provides "how to" information on contraception and on ways to avoid sexual activity
Supports abstinence as a positive choice rather than a fear and shame based choice
Includes activities that address social pressures that influence sexual behavior
Provides examples of and practice with communication, negotiation and refusal skills
Employs teaching methods designed to involve participants and have them personalize the information
Incorporates behavioral goals, teaching methods and materials that are appropriate to the age, sexual experience, and culture of the students.
Avoids bias based on religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, income, disability or other issues
Lasts a sufficient length of time(i.e more than a few hours or days)
Engages teachers and peer leaders who believe in the program and had a role in its selection; provides them with adequate training.
Teaches about making decisions based on assessing personal values and goals as well as objective information about risk
Promotes parent-student communication
Teaches how to recognize and address violent or exploitative relationships

Excerpted from "Sex Education: A Guide for Curriculum Selection" published by Illinois Consortium on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (www.icapp.info) and Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (www.icah.org). 2003.

Abstinence-Only Curricula Used in Illinois Schools

The following are descriptions of the three curricula being used in place of sex education in more than 40% of Illinois classrooms. Please see the back of this page for the standards and components required to be rated as a Responsible Sex Education Curriculum by the Illinois Campaign for Responsible Sex Education.

A.C. Green’s Game Plan
Excludes information on sexual anatomy, contraceptive options and information, information on testing and treatment for STIs, sexual orientation, information on sexual harassment, rape, sexual assault and dating violence, and prevention information for students who have already become sexually active.

Project Reality, the creator of Game Plan and Navigator, often cites its evaluation of Game Plan by a Northwestern University researcher as evidence of its effectiveness and diversity. The unpublished, non-peer-reviewed evaluation only determines, however, that students understand the messages of the program at the conclusion of the program; the study does not attempt to measure behavior change, even over a modest period of time. In the study, 70% of youth who participated were Caucasian.

Representative Quotes:

“While condom usage has increased among teens, the spread of STDs has also increased most among teens.” Misleads youth as to the effectiveness of condoms in preventing serious and harmful diseases. “Any kind of sexual activity can spread STDs from one person to another.” Misleads youth as to the nature of different sexually transmitted infections and their transmission.

“The only safe sex is in a marriage where a man and a woman are faithful to each other for life.” Places youth at risk by providing this as the only answer; not all mutually-faithful monogamous relationships take place in the context of marriage, and almost 96% of Americans have intercourse by age 24; average age of marriage for women is 25, for men is 27.

“Is ‘birth control’ the answer? Consider this fact: most unintended pregnancies (53%) occurred among women who were using birth control.” Misleads youth as to the effectiveness of contraception.

Navigator
Excludes information on sexual anatomy, contraceptive options, and information, information on testing and treatment for STIs, sexual orientation, information on sexual harassment, rape, sexual assault and dating violence, and prevention information for students who have already become sexually active.

Representative Quotes:

“Navigator does not promote the use of contraceptives among teens. Students who do not exercise self-control to remain abstinent are not likely to exercise the self-control in the use of contraceptive devices.” Discourages contraceptive use with non-factually based information.

“She realized that the emotional pain she was experiencing was real, and that a condom wasn’t going to do anything to blunt the emotional hurt she was experiencing.” Attempts to undermine use of contraceptives, which are designed to prevent unintended pregnancy and STIs, by mixing content on contraception with content more appropriate for relationship and negotiation skills.

Sex Respect
Excludes information on family communication, contraceptive options and information, information on testing and treatment for STIs, sexual orientation, information on sexual harassment, rape, sexual assault and dating violence, and prevention information for students who have already become sexually active.

Representative Quotes:

“Birth control shots, pills and implants affected a girl’s mood and often made her gain weight” Uses non-factual information to create fear of using contraception in young women.

“French kissing may be a slight risk behavior for AIDS transmission.” Medically inaccurate.

Standards for an Illinois Responsible Sex Education Program

Curriculum products for grades 7 – 12 should meet the following standards:

(1) age appropriate,
(2) medically accurate,
(3) does not promote specific religion,
(4) stresses abstinence without ignoring youth who are already sexually active,
(5) encourages family communication,
(6) develops knowledge and skills,
(7) develops healthy attitudes toward development, body image, gender and sexual orientation.

Additionally, they should include the following components (units or segments discussing the following):

(1) abstinence is the only way to avoid pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases,
(2) information about the health benefits, side effects, and proper use contraceptives and barrier methods,
(3) responsible decisions about sexuality, including how to avoid unwanted verbal, physical, and sexual advances, and how not to make unwanted verbal, physical, and sexual advances,
(4) alcohol and drug use can affect responsible decision making,
(5) knowledge about the physical, biological, and hormonal changes of adolescence and subsequent stages of human maturation,
(6) knowledge about the specific involvement and responsibility of both males and females in sexual decision making,
(7) healthy life skills, including goal setting, decision making, negotiation, communication, and stress management,
(8) self-esteem and positive interpersonal skills focusing on relationship skills, including platonic, romantic, intimate, and family relationships and interaction.

Abstinence-Only Programs like Game Plan, Navigator and Sex Respect Can Cause Harm

In order to receive federal funds, curricula like Game Plan, Navigator and Sex Respect exclude information on the effectiveness of contraception and must exclusively teach the benefits of abstinence. They are not “abstinencebased” because there are no options offered for prevention other than abstinence. These types of programs have been subject to credible study in recent years:

The Journal of Adolescent Health (2005) This study looked at the long-term efficacy of taking a virginity pledge – a common practice of abstinence-only programs that instructs students to pledge that they will abstain from sexual activity until their wedding night. The study found many young adults who pledged virginity continued to engage in forms of sexual activity that they did not define as intercourse, such as oral and anal sex.

Additionally: 88% of virginity-pledgers had sex before marriage, 54.6% of virginity-pledgers used condoms the first time they had sex, compared with 59.7% of non-pledgers, and more than 20% of non-pledgers were likely to see a doctor for STD treatment, compared to 16% of virginity pledgers. Bruckner, Hannah, Bearman. After the Promise: The STD Consequences of Adolescent Virginity Pledges. Journal of Adolescent Health. (May 2005) IS 36pp8.

Congressional Review Conducted by Mathmatica (2005) In 1997, Congress commissioned a five-year independent evaluation of programs funded by Title V. The preliminary report, conducted by the Mathematica Policy Research Inc., came out in June 2005. The report found that young people in the abstinence-only until marriage programs under review reported no difference in their self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-control, refusal skills, or communication with parents. The study did not conclude that abstinence-only education delays early sexual activity or contributes significantly to the recent decline in teenage pregnancy rates. Maynard, Terenholm et al. First 5-year Impacts f 4 title V section 510 Abstinence Education Programs. Mathematica Policy Research, Inc (June 2005).

Texas Abstinence Program Evaluation (2004) In a study evaluating abstinence-only programs in Texas high schools, the percentage of students who took part in the program who reported engaging in premarital sex increased for almost all students aged 13-17.The percentage of 9th grade females who reported being sexually active prior to taking part in the program was 23%, compared to 29% after completion. Almost a quarter (24%) of boys in the 10thgrade were sexually active prior to the program compared to 39% after completion. The programs studied are confined by the federal definition that forces them to exclude information proven to aid in prevention of unintended pregnancy and STDs. Goodson, Pruitt, et al. Abstinence Education Evaluation Phase 5.

Technical Report (September 2004).