International Sex Education

Lexa_Blue
October 10, 2005
International Policy Comparison Paper

         Since the inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001, social politics has experienced a tremendous backslide. Rather than continuing the trend of social progress, more conservative moral systems instituted an actual regression, and abandonment of the evolution of intellectual thought. Scholarly, rational thinking has been rejected in favor of arbitrary theories of faith-based social morals. One of the best examples of this travesty, and one of the many casualties to the Bush administration's war on rational social politics is sex education.
         Sexual education in the United States today is heavily based on morals, and is becoming more so every day. Conservative politicians (who happen to be those in positions of power) are pushing ever harder for abstinence-only sex education. The theory behind this push is that children will not have sex if they do not learn about it in school. According to this theory of sexual education, talking about sex in schools will lead more children to explore intercourse; these children, in turn, would be committing the immoral act of premarital sex.
         The growing demand for abstinence-only sex education speaks volumes to the changing values systems in the United States. Throughout the past several years, America has become more socially conservative, especially relating to issues of sexual health or sexual orientation. Suitable sex education has been one of the casualties. Although the current administration seems to think that teenagers will not have sex if they are not taught about it, studies have proven this theory to be false. Rather than evaluate the abstenance-only mindset, as would happen in a well-thought out policy making process, the policy-makers have ignored the empirical evidence and stood blindly by their unsubstantiated theory. They have also ignored the taxpayers-a recent statistic states that up to seventy percent of Americans disagree with abstinence-only sex education; yet those in power are so strict in their moral standards that the desires of the people they serve come second.
         The stakeholders in sex education policy are many. The primary stakeholders are the children on the receiving end of the education. Adolescents who do make the choice to engage in sexual activity in spite of their abstinence-only education (and studies show that many do) will not have received any information from their teachers about protection of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. As a result, the rates of unwanted pregnancy and STIs increases. All federal taxpayers are stakeholders as well. Most abstinence-only education in schools is funded in part by the federal government; every taxpaying American is therefore giving money to these programs, whether they agree with them or not. Taxpayers will also fund the results of this sex education program-resources for single teenage mothers and STI infected young people are also funded by state and federal assets (although less and less federal money). The burden here, as per usual, falls on the taxpayers.
         Sex education in the Netherlands is radically different than the programs in the United States. Sex is talked about often in schools and in a wide variety of subjects. Rather than lecture the students, most teachers employ a matter-of-fact, conversational method of discussing sexuality. As a result, young people in the Netherlands feel more comfortable talking about sex, with each other as well as with their parents. Parents are encouraged to address sex education in the home in order to bolster the knowledge that children obtain in school.
         In addition to the efforts of the schools in the Netherlands to promote comprehensive sex education, the government has been making its own endeavors. The Dutch government teamed up with many media companies to put out media campaigns that relate to sexual health. The campaigns were aimed specifically about breaking down barriers to discussing sexuality and learning about protection. The media campaigns by the national government reflect the value placed on thorough, accurate sex education and acceptence of natural teenage sexual behavior in Dutch society.
         The efforts by the government and the school systems in the Netherlands have payed off. Condom use has climbed significantly in recent years. Critics of what has been termed rational sex education assert that if adolescents are given comprehensive and complete sex education early on in their teenage years, they will have sex earlier in their lives. In the Netherlands, however, the contrary is true; Dutch teenagers are among the oldest to have sexual relations for the first time among all of Western countries.
         The American and Dutch programs relating to sex education reflect extremely different values sets. The policy in the Netherlands would suggest that the populace places a high importance on practical, accurate, and useful information. They seem to view sexual activity as a natural occurance and adolescent sexuality as an inevitable factor in society. They understand that in their culture, teenage sexual behavior cannot be prevented. Rather than waste their resources on unrealistic goals, educators in the Netherlands try their utmost to make sure that the teenagers who do choose to have sex will do so in an educated and informed matter. The Dutch want to make sure that their teenagers know how to protect themselves.
         Conversely, policy-makers in the United States have goals that have proven up until now to be completely unrealistic. In reviewing American policy, one must be careful not to degrade nor to criticize the moral values of the United States populace (whatever they may actually be-as stated above, concurrance with the abstinance-only education policy is dubious). What must be critically appraised, however, is the manner in which these morals are applied. A strong moral values set is extremely important for every individual within a society; yet an individual moral code is not a strong enough base on which to build public policy.

References

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