Sex-education programs for U.S. teens not working?

[Neil D]

BEIJING, April 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Sex-education programs that focus on teaching teens to abstain from sex until marriage seem to not work well, according to a study ordered by the U.S. Congress earlier and quoted by media Monday.

The study found that students who took part in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not.

A survey of more than 2,000 teenagers carried out by a research company on behalf of the Congress found that half of the sample given abstinence-only education displayed exactly the same predilection for sex as those who had received conventional sex education in which contraception was discussed.

"For both the program and control group youth, the reported mean age at first intercourse was identical, 14.9 years," said the survey.

"Over the last 12 months, 23 percent of both groups reported having had sex and always using a condom; 17 percent of both groups reported having had sex and only sometimes using a condom; and 4 percent of both groups reported having had sex and never using a condom," the survey wrote.

Even though the study found the programs had no effect on children's sexual habits later on, it stressed that the programs did not result in an increase in the rate of unprotected sex. Critics have suggested that the sex abstinence programs could result in children engaging in unprotected sex in larger numbers.

Despite critics saying these programs are a waste of money, which could be directed to other more effective programs, the U.S. federal government spends 176 million U.S. dollars on them annually.

This survey has been a central plank of President George Bush's social policy: to stop teenagers having sex. More than 1 billion of federal money has been spent on promoting abstinence since 1998.

[bevin]

Over $1B on a program that is a central plank of GWB's social policy and doesn't work...

I predict that the Bush administration will (a) ignore the study, and ( do something to the people who did/requested the study.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

BEIJING? We couldn't find a domestic source for this story?

Studies have shown the "Love Waits" program the Southern Baptists delays the first sexual encounter by two or three years and that those who have been in the program have less sexual partners before they marry than others.

The results I saw from The Kaiser Family Foundation indicate the median age for boys first sexual encounter is 16.9 years and for girls is 17.4. I am not sure where Beijing got 14.9 from. Even if both groups are starting sex at the same age, the good news is that more are waiting longer before they start. Certainly abstinence education needs to encompass the emotional issues of having sex prior to marriage and the impact it has on teenage break-ups. Another interesting study would be to find out if those that have sex before marriage are more likely to commit adultery during marriage.

The failure of the public school program (if indeed this story isn't just anti-American, communist propaganda) most likely lies with the way the program is taught. If teachers are teaching the subject because they are forced to, and don't really believe it realistic, the results are likely to show that. It is like when my biology teacher taught us evolution and he began by telling us he didn't believe it himself but had to teach it according to law. Well, if the teacher doesn't even believe it, how many kids will?

Quote:

This survey has been a central plank of President George Bush's social policy: to stop teenagers having sex.

This makes one wonder if English is the second language of the article's author. How can the survey be the central plank of the policy? The survey is only a means of measurement. That is like saying a scale is a central part of my weight-loss diet.

[bevin]

Since I know you like Fox News...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,265940,00.html

Quote:

WASHINGTON — Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex within a few years as those who did not, according to a long-awaited study mandated by Congress.

Also, those who attended the abstinence classes reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes, and they first had sex at about the same age as their control group counterparts -- 14 years and nine months, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don't believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement.

However, Bush administration officials cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study. They said the four programs reviewed -- among several hundred across the nation -- were some of the very first established after Congress overhauled the nation's welfare laws in 1996.

Officials said one lesson they learned from the study is that the abstinence message should be reinforced in subsequent years to truly affect behavior.

Anybody else find that 14-years-and-nine-months number surprising?

/Bevin

[bevin]

The "Love Waits" studies are in the Wikipedia

I didn't look closely - but there were two things that were apparent.

(a) It was NOT taking the program that was correlated with the delay, it was taking the pledge - in other words, the sample is biased and causality was not established

( The evidence suggested that, while intercourse was delayed, other highly sexual activity was not

/Bevin

[Liz]

I think this is another case of getting mixed messages. What good will it do to tell these kids don't have sex before marriage, when they will then go home to their mom/dad's house and their live-in boy/girl friend? If they grow up with immorality then it is hard to teach them about moral things. It isn't necessarily the school's fault but a whole break down of society at large.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

I know you like Fox News..

The link goes to an AP story published on FOXNews' website. And yes, the AP story was more objective than the communist news service.

Quote:

"I really do think it's a two-part story. First, there is no evidence that the programs increased the rate of sexual abstinence," said Chris Trenholm, a senior researcher at Mathematica who oversaw the study. "However, the second part of the story that I think is equally important is that we find no evidence that the programs increased the rate of unprotected sex."

Big discrepancies between this study and that done by the Kaiser Family Foundation only two years ago. Both organizations are non-partisan and reputable.

Well, we know the liberal answer is just to throw more money at the problem. Right? If it isn't working, spend more money. Unless we want 14 year olds having sex. Then, by all means, abandon the program.

[Planey]

Quote:

Well, we know the liberal answer is just to throw more money at the problem. Right? If it isn't working, spend more money.

Remind me again, Shane, who wants to throw more money at the debacle that is Iraq?

[bevin]

Actually, in this case, it is the Bush Administration - that bastion of liberalism - that wants to throw money at the program...

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Iraq is completely off topic. Funding a war has nothing to do with funding sex education. To bring it up only shows the anti-Bush bias of the poster. It is like Rush Limbaugh that uses completely unrelated issues to bash Clinton.

What is driving sex among teenagers is the sex-saturated entertainment industry and the secularization of society. We cannot expect any public school program to have much of an impact on that. The FCC needs to crack down more on what they allow to be transmitted via radio and satellites. While that is censorship, it is not unconstitutional. The FCC can prohibit certain things (like cigarette advertising) on the radio and television that is still allowed in print media form. Freedom of speech is not protected to the same extent in broadcast media as it is in print media and satellite signals are transmitted on the people's right-of-way just like the streets we drive on. The FCC has the authority to censor these communications and have a larger impact than teaching abstinence in public schools.

H.R. 3717, the ‘Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004

Quote:

Now, I have a few observations followed by a question. The Super Bowl fiasco was a matter of seconds. But just two days ago, Tuesday, here in Washington, D. C., cable and satellite providers carried 675 hours of pornography mostly on pay per view channels. Yes, a total of 675 hours of filth in one 24 hour period-and at all hours of the day. Now, here's the point. Cable and satellite use the public satellite orbital positions licensed by the FCC. They use microwave frequencies licensed by the FCC and owned by the people and the right of ways on streets also owned by the people. Cable and satellite television could not function without the public's right of ways or the public's spectrum...

No one sitting in this room can tell me it is in the public interest for cable and satellite providers to use the public spectrum and right of ways to pipe indecent and obscene programming into America's living rooms at all hours of the day without any constraints or limitations. But that is what is happening, day after day.

How to fix this moral decay? Empower the FCC; enact legislation; have an amendment to the Constitution if necessary. You are the lawmakers. You can do it...

I've talked with dozens of church clergy, and they would step to this microphone and tell you that the number one family counseling problem is pornography on cable, satellite and the Internet.

If you need voters' names on petitions to do something about this pervasive evil, just tell me how many millions. It will be done.

Please don't say that pornography is okay because it is scrambled. In fact, the people in the home who know how to use a remote control best are the kids, and you only need a remote control to click on a pay per view channel to unscramble those signals.

Finally, the proceeding of Multicast Must Carry for the public's digital TV licenses is over three years old at the FCC. It's the one thing necessary for the DTV transition to work, and it hasn't happened yet. The cable and satellite providers say they have no spectrum for the additional program streams that would provide companies like mine with the ability to offer more family friendly programming, minority oriented programming and faith based programming. Tell cable and satellite to get the pornography off. They've got room for our multicast channels.

The majority of American people have values and morals. The majority of America people do not want what they own to be used for pornography in any way.

[Bravus]

I think Liz is on the right track: family is hugely important in this issue. There is research to show that girls in families with stepfathers actually reach puberty earlier than those in families with their own fathers. A secure, supportive, nurturing family where children get love and affection at home, and where their activities are well supervised, and where they understand the benefits of married sexuality and abstinence before as well as the potential consequences of early sexual activity... Schools can do the best job possible, but without that foundation at home it's going to be an uphill struggle.

(Oh, and liberals don't want more money into these failing abstinence-only programs, they want funding for sex education that strongly encourages abstinence but also says to teens 'if you are going to choose sexual activity, here are the ways to protect yourself and your partner from unwanted pregnancies and STDs'.)

[Dr. Shane]

There may well be a collation between the rise in divorce and the rise in teenage sex. That would be an interesting study too.

BTW: my comment about liberals wanting to throw money is more aimed at how they propose to handle welfare fraud and failing inner-city schools.

"Sex education that strongly encourages abstinence but also says to teens 'if you are going to choose sexual activity, here are the ways to protect yourself and your partner from unwanted pregnancies and STDs'."

That is that basics of the abstinence programs but I don't think they get into many of the emotional consequences of teenage sex. I.e. a large number of teenage suicide is a result of a broken romance that involved teenage sex. Sexual relations impair a person's judgment and teenage girls often stay with and even marry abusive boys that they wouldn't have stayed with if the relationship had been nonsexual.

[bevin]

Quote:

What is driving sex among teenagers is the sex-saturated entertainment industry and the secularization of society.

Oh - and what is driving the even higher levels of sexual activity in Malawi, where there is extreme poverty, no significant entertainment industry, and >90% of the population is actively Christian?

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Is bringing up Malawi the best argument that can be made against the influence of popular entertainment on American youth?

Malawi, which is an African nation that was controlled by the Brittish for many years has its own issues with sexuality. Although they do have radio and television stations there, I have not idea if their government does a better job of censoring the content or not.

The AIDS crisis in Malawi has about as much to do with the price of rice in China as it does with the breakdown of the American family and increased sexual activity here.

[Bravus]

It does bring up the point that we can pretty much project our own explanations on the issue. Personally I'd love to see some research that got seriously into the effects of family and of media. My intuition says family is *far* more important... but at this point I'm guessing and likely projecting. And it's likely a complex of things, not a single issue. And it's actually not that much of a historical anomaly, except in the context of the 1950s... for the vast majority of human history the mean age for onset of sexual activity has been lower than 15.

[Dr. Shane]

I have listened to and read material from Focus on the Family for years. They have done a lot of study into this. There is no doubt that the family life has an impact and that media also has an impact. I have never seen, read or heard anything that claimed to know which had more of an impact.

I think most would agree that education in the schools, while it does have an impact, it is not as great as the family or entertainment industry.

[bevin]

Your unproven hypothesis is that the entertainment industry is driving up the teen sex rate.

There are at least 10 other, equally plausible, explanations

1 - it isn't normal for humans to delay sexual activity until 20

2 - hormones in the food supply

3 - other weird chemicals in the environment

4 - better nutrition

5 - low birth rate

6 - single-parent families

7 - both-parents-working families

8 - cars = increased mobility

9 - larger schools = more potential partners

10 - better personal hygiene = increased attractiveness

Focus on the Family comes with their own builtin biases

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Obama gets it. Press Release

Quote:

When children are exposed to sex without consequences, they're more likely to have it...

if industry fails to act, if it fails to give parents advanced control and choices - Congress will.

Hilary Clinton gets it too. Clinton Seeks Uniform Ratings In Entertainment for Children

Quote:

Mrs. Clinton then added that people should have similar concern about the ''contagion'' of violence and sex that she said infused video games, the Internet and television programs.

''This is a silent epidemic,'' she said. ''We don't necessarily see the results immediately.''

''If you think of this from a public health perspective,'' she continued, ''what we are doing today, exposing our children to so much of this unchecked media, is a kind of contagion.''

So it isn't just the opinion of some right-wingers at Focus on The Family.

BTW: Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage was signed into law by President Clinton - not President Bush.