The Availability of Sex Education in Large City School Districts

Because relatively little is known about the extent to which sex education is taught in public schools, a survey of school districts in cities with populations over 100,000 was conducted in January 1982. Respondents indicated that sex education, in some form, is provided by 80 percent of the districts, and 85 percent of the 9.3 million students get some sex education in school. The differences in the availability of sex education among elementary, junior and senior high schools are surprisingly small. Rather than provide separate sex education courses, most districts integrate the material with other curriculum subjects. Ninety-four percent of districts with sex education said that one of their major goals is "to promote rational and informed decision-making about sexuality." The second most popular goal, chosen by 77 percent of the districts, is "to increase a student's knowledge of reproduction;" 40 percent of the districts chose reduction of unwanted teenage pregnancy as a major goal. The numbers of students participating in sex education are large, perhaps because almost half of the districts have compulsory courses. The mean student participation rates are 73 percent for elementary schools and 76 percent for both junior and senior high schools. Sex education in elementary school programs generally involves five or fewer hours of instruction annually. At the junior and senior high levels, it most often consists of 6-10 hours of teaching time. The average sex education program for a district covers at least 18 topics.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)