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Gabriela Schiappacasse

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

9/27/2018

Are schools condoning teen pregnancy with poor sexual education?

The United States ranks first among developed nations in rates of both teenage pregnancy

and sexually transmitted diseases. “In an effort to reduce these rates, the U.S. government has

funded abstinence-only sex education programs for more than a decade. However, a public

controversy remains over whether this investment has been successful and whether these

programs should be continued.” I will be researching a variety of studies done on the quality and

content of the sexual education taught in the united states and its correlation to the teen

pregnancy rates. I will also be researching the quality and content of sexual education in other

countries and their teenage pregnancy rates to test whether or not schools in the united states are

condoning teen pregnancy rates with low quality/ abstinence only sexual education.

Abstinence only sexual education is not the only factor in the increased rate of teen

pregnancy. Socioeconomic status, ethnicity, etc. is also part of problem but in a study done by

the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, show that by “using the most

recent national data from all U.S. states with information on sex education laws or policies, we

show that increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively correlated with teenage

pregnancy and birth rates. These data show clearly that abstinence-only education as a state

policy is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the
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high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.”

“The appropriate type of sex education that should be taught in U.S. public schools

continues to be a major topic of debate, which is motivated by the high teen pregnancy and birth

rates in the U.S., compared to other developed countries. Much of this debate has centered on

whether abstinence-only versus comprehensive sex education should be taught in public schools.

Some argue that sex education that covers safe sexual practices, such as condom use, sends a

mixed message to students and promotes sexual activity.” One personal memory I have

surrounding this topic is being handed a permission slip by my health teachers and being told to

take it home and get my parents to sign it giving the school permission to educate me on the

inevitable; sex. Some go by the slogan, “ignorance is bliss” but in this case, “ignorance” leads to

teenage mothers and unwanted pregnancies. This study focused on the central message of

abstinence only sexual education programs which is “to delay sexual activity until marriage, and

under the federal funding regulations most of these programs cannot include information about

contraception or safer-sex practices.” Sexual education in schools may be uncomfortable for

some but so is being a grandma at 35. If abstinence education results in teenagers being

abstinent, teenage pregnancy and birth rates should be lower in those states that emphasize

abstinence more which is the opposite of the data found within this study.

My initial inquiry question that started my research was, “Are schools condoning teen

pregnancy with poor sexual education?” I had many other questions that lead me to this one but

this is the one question that summed all of the others up and would help provide me with the best

research and “answers” to my questions.

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My interest in this topic began with my family. I have had a couple family members who

ended up as teenage mothers and from this snowballed a general curiosity. I then started to think

about my friends from school, middle school in particular. A surprising number of the people I

had known/ been friends with in middle school were now mothers at the age of 15-18. I started to

ask more questions and become more curious. I had asked my sister and family members about

this and many of the things they had been taught about sex were found on the internet or in low

quality sexual education found in schools. Many of my sisters’ friends were pregnant or had

sexually transmitted diseases at a young age because they lacked basic knowledge on sex,

reproduction and sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s.) I then started to examine what I had

been and was being taught in school. Our sexual education curriculum is less of a curriculum and

more of a scare tactic. I remember sitting in my “health” class and being shown infected genitalia

and being told that abstinence is the only way to protect yourself against sexually transmitted

diseases. From this research, I hope to further understand the logic behind “abstinence only

sexual education” and find out if poor sexual education/ abstinence only sexual education

correlates with teenage pregnancy rates.

My next steps are to visit many reliable sources such as the library, planned parenthood

website and the online UNCC library collection to find reliable research and data that may

approve or disprove of my initial inquiry. I am hoping to collect most of my data from the US

National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health which has conducted specific studies

on this topic in not only the US but other countries as well. I am going to stray farther away from

news articles and social media because I am looking for factual research, not opinions and in

many newspapers/ social media platforms, that is all you may find. From just some of my
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research in the library, I have found many sources that can provide me with the topic specific

studies and data that I need which will allow me to determine a factual, research based answer to

my questions.

References: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194801/