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Just the Facts? The Separation of Sex Education from Moral Education
Abstract
In this essay Sharon Lamb considers how progressives have begun to win the longstanding battle to shape sex education and what they have had to give up in the process. After framing the battle in historical context, Lamb uses discourse analysis to explore the hidden values in the “evidence-based” (EB) curricula that progressives currently favor and that pass for neutral today. As her analysis reveals, EB curricula privilege three discourses — a discourse of science, a discourse of healthy choices (with an emphasis on individuals), and a discourse of efficacy — all of which are grounded in ideology and serve to legitimize certain kinds of knowledge while undermining other kinds. Lamb concludes by proposing eight tenets for the future of sexuality education, which are intended to displace the eight tenets codified by proponents of abstinence-only-until-marriage sexuality education.
... Rather than narrowly demarcating the un/acceptability of desires, the idea is to determine the conditions for ethical exploration of desires (Carmody, 2009;Carmody & Ovenden, 2013). Ethical erotics builds on Foucauldian understandings of sexual ethics as relational and collective, involving both care of the self and care of the other (Lamb, 2010(Lamb, , 2013. This is reflected in notions of mutual responsibility and mutual "cultures of care," which contrast with "duty ethics" (e.g., obtaining consent as a legal requirement for sex). ...
... Ethical sexual citizenship pedagogy moves past an individualistic, neoliberal risk-mitigation, "empowerment" discourse and the health promotion aim of promoting sexually "healthy" individuals. Rather, it shifts focus to sexual ethics and the exploration of the collective, other-orientated, relational, socio-cultural, political, and economic dimensions of sexuality (Lamb, 2010(Lamb, , 2013. In practice, this entails more than simply replacing the normative and individualistic notions of "risk" or "health" espoused by porn literacy with a discussion of un/ethical behaviors or relations. ...
... In practice, this entails more than simply replacing the normative and individualistic notions of "risk" or "health" espoused by porn literacy with a discussion of un/ethical behaviors or relations. The objective is to facilitate the illumination and clarification of the principles that guide sexual practices and relations, whether overt or implicit, as well as grappling with notions of respect, compassion, fairness, and social justice (Lamb, 2013). The involves working with young people through critical reflection and discussion to develop their ethical stance vis-à-vis themselves and others within their unique socio-cultural context (Carmody & Ovenden, 2013). ...
... These fears intersected with eugenics movement beliefs about fostering white, middle-class, Anglo-Saxon reproduction to improve the human race (SIECUS, 2021a). Sexuality education thus emerged as an attempt to "regulate all sexual activity, to eradicate prostitution and reeducate prostitutes, and to prevent racial degeneration of white (seen as pure) children," as a way of addressing male venereal disease and maintaining racial and class purity and marriage (Lamb, 2013). ...
... At this time, adolescent sexuality and sexual activity were perceived as societal problems from which (sexually) innocent children require adult protection (Cronenberg, 2013;Fields, 2012;Kendall, 2008). While supporters viewed expert sexuality education as the solution, those opposing these programs worried that open discussion about sex threatened both young girls' modesty and their desire to marry, potentially "scaring" girls into celibacy or lesbianism instead of marriage (Lamb, 2013). Importantly, the dramatized discourse of the adolescent sexuality "problem," then and now, is gendered, racialized, and classed-with wealthy white girls perceived as sexual innocents, and poor youth and youth of color 'at risk' and sources of danger (Fields, 2005(Fields, , 2012García, 2009;SIECUS, 2021a). ...
... Here again, educational efforts focused on "protecting" white students and reinforced gender roles painting boys as aggressors in a sexual relationship (SIECUS, 2021a). The emphasis on teaching teens "the facts" about sex peaked in the 1960s with the formation of the Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), whose purpose was to provide information to young people so that they could make their own moral decisions (Lamb, 2013). It was around this time (the 1960s) that sexuality education became controversial again, but with a new set of concerns, with the rise of the gender, sexual, youth, and civil rights revolutions and the Religious Right countercultural movement. ...
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ysphtdl/2178/
This thesis applies social science research, historical and cultural analysis, and legislative review to understand the relationship between Texas’s school-based sexuality education policies and public health and, in so doing, lay the groundwork for policy change that will better promote sexual and reproductive health, health equity, and health justice in Texas.
The thesis first situates Texas state-level sexuality education policy within a larger US political, historical, and legal context, highlighting the key roles of race, class, gender, and sexuality stereotypes and of “morality politics.” It then examines the political history of Texas sexuality education debates within this national context, revealing that opposition to a redistributive school finance policy in Texas has fostered racialized Religious Right rhetoric and the election of increasingly conservative Republican policymakers. An analysis of quantitative political and social science research demonstrates that these variables—namely white perceptions of racial threat, economic threat, state representatives’ conservativism, Religious Right influence in the state Republican party, and Religious Right interest groups—fuel the adoption and maintenance of state-level abstinence-only sexuality education policies.
A legislative review of Texas state-level laws governing sexuality education finds that Texas statutory laws severely limit equal access to full and complete sexual health information, openly discriminate against LGBTQ+ youth, and can be expected to result in poor sexual health outcomes with significant health disparities by race, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Religious Right values, state representatives, and interest groups retain a strong hold over Texas state-level sexuality education laws, even though the general population supports expanding access to medically accurate sexuality education; and morality politics push state-level law further to the right while limiting the potential for progressive headway.
Public health professionals seeking to improve sexual and reproductive rights and health outcomes in Texas must attend to the complex interplay of morality politics, political actors, and legal structures operating in the state to guide activism and policy advocacy efforts.
... While there has always been some opposition to sex education from conservative religious actors, a nationwide debate on sex education in The Netherlands has not taken place to the same extent that it has, for example, in the United States. One of the reasons for this is that, in the past, The Netherlands promoted a scientific, evidencebased approach that steered away from the explicitly moral messages of abstinence-only education (Lamb, 2013;Naezer et al., 2017;Rasmussen, 2012). Another reason is that there is no national curriculum, only stipulations about what children should have learned about sexuality and reproduction by the time they finish school. ...
In spring 2023, controversy arose over Spring Fever, an annual campaign to promote sexual and relationship education in primary schools in The Netherlands. This led to parliamentary questions and even death threats against employees of Rutgers, The Netherlands Center on Sexuality, which developed the program. This article examines how child sexuality was framed both in the Spring Fever project and in the resulting controversy. The analysis is based on newspaper articles from March to June 2023. One premise of Spring Fever is that children are seen as sexual agents able to develop their sexuality safely through age-appropriate education, which aims for children’s healthy development, including negotiating consent and experiencing pleasure. During the 2023 controversy, discourses of childhood innocence emerged in response to this, alongside accusations of focusing too much on “woke” themes, such as gender diversity. This paper concludes that, due to global anti-gender movements and local right-wing politics, the Dutch model of sex education—pragmatic, comprehensive, and evidence-based, as seen in Spring Fever—no longer maintains its depoliticizing effect. Additionally, the Spring Fever controversy signals a shift in the politics of sexual nationalism in The Netherlands.
... Poor confidence, competence, and comfortability in CSE can result in certain topics (e.g. LGBTQI+ issues, sex positivity etc) not being taught while other issues such as physical health are frequently privileged in the teaching of RSE, but are frequently taught without critical evaluation (Hargreaves et al. 2018;Lamb 2013;Barrie and Smith 2015). ...
Ethics intersects with sexuality research in two ways, first as a topic of study and second as a way to perform research on sexuality. Research on ethics and sex or sexuality has focused on political issues as they have arisen. This entry discusses types of research on sex and sexuality that involve ethics like research supporting LGBTQ rights or sex education, as well as how one does research on sex and sexuality in an ethical way.
Moral education is an enduring concern for societies committed to the value of justice and the wellbeing of children. What kind of moral guidance do young people need to navigate the social world today? Which theories, perspectives, values, and ideals are best suited for the task? This volume offers educators insight into both the challenges and promises of moral education from a variety of ethical perspectives. It introduces and analyses several important developments in ethics and moral psychology and discusses how some key moral problems can be addressed in contemporary classrooms. In doing so, Moral Education in the 21st Century helps readers develop a deeper understanding of the complexities of helping young people grow into moral agents and ethical people. As such, researchers, students, and professionals in the fields of moral education, moral psychology, moral philosophy, ethics, educational theory, and philosophy of education will benefit from this volume.
Since Michelle Fine's writing on the missing discourse of desire in sex education, there has been considerable prompting among sexuality educators and feminist scholars to incorporate talk of pleasure into sex education curricula. While the calls for inclusion continue, few have actually examined the curricula for a pleasure discourse or explored how it is contextualised within sex education curricula. In this paper, we analysed curricula used in the USA in the past decade. A qualitative thematic analysis revealed that the discourse around pleasurable sex was often linked to a range of dangerous or negative outcomes including not using condoms, rushing into sex without thinking, regretted sex, and pregnancy or STDs. When the discourse around pleasure was included in sections on ‘knowing one's body’, this discourse took a medicalised, scientific tone. Pleasurable sex was also presented in more positive ways, either linked to marriage in Abstinence Only Until Marriage curricula, or within a more feminist discourse about female pleasure in comprehensive sex education curricula. Our research indicates that a discourse of desire is not missing, but that this discourse was often situated as part of a discourse on safe practice and there, continues to equate pleasure with danger.
This article engages contemporary debates about the notion of secularism, outside of the field of education. I draw on these debates to consider how ‘progressives’ in sex education in the USA draw on and reinscribe religious/secular divides. I will consider the affinities, prejudices and attachments of scholars who advocate a secular worldview, in the context of sex education, and I will consider some of the consequences that ensue from this way of seeing. My aim is to demonstrate how the notion of secularism works to frame debates within the field of sex education.
There exists the idea that western societies are now postfeminist, implying that remaining differences between men and women should be understood as a result of the free exercise of individual choice. Yet this postfeminist promise of liberation is overwhelmingly packaged within the crushingly cruel beauty images that western women are judged against and incited to emulate. Theorizing female agency in light of choice and liberation discourses has been the topic of much recent feminist literature, to which this article seeks to contribute. We utilized a feminist post-structuralist framework to examine how young Australian women position themselves as freely choosing and able to throw off oppression. We discuss these findings in relation to the conception of the neoliberal feminine subject; described as someone who playfully expresses herself by freely choosing her level of participation in socially promoted beauty practices; in turn resulting in a resistance to being seen as inflexible, or critical of wider social influences
Gender and Culture in Psychology introduces new approaches to the psychological study of gender that bring together feminist psychology, socio-cultural psychology, discursive psychology and critical psychology. It presents research and theory that embed human action in social, cultural and interpersonal contexts. The book provides conceptual tools for thinking about gender, social categorization, human meaning-making, and culture. It also describes a family of interpretative research methods that focus on rich talk and everyday life. It provides a close-in view of how interpretative research proceeds. The latter part of the book showcases innovative projects that investigate topics of concern to feminist scholars and activists: young teens' encounters with heterosexual norms; women and men negotiating household duties and childcare; sexual coercion and violence in heterosexual encounters; the cultural politics of women's weight and eating concerns; psychiatric labelling of psychological suffering; and feminism in psychotherapy.
I am introducing the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior because we, as a nation, must address the significant public health challenges regarding the sexual health of our citizens. In recognition of these challenges, promoting responsible sexual behavior is included among the Surgeon General—s public health priorities and is also one of the Healthy People 2010 Ten Leading Health Indicators for the Nation. Although it is important to acknowledge the many positive aspects of sexuality, we also need to understand that there are undesirable consequences as well—alarmingly high levels of sexually transmitted disease and HIV/AIDS infection, unintended pregnancy, abortion, sexual dysfunction, and sexual violence. These challenges can be met, but first we must find common ground and reach consensus on some important problems and their possible solutions. It is necessary to appreciate what sexual health is, that it is connected with both physical and mental health, and that it is important throughout the entire life span, not just the reproductive years. It is also important to recognize the responsibilities that individuals and communities have in protecting sexual health. The responsibility of well-informed adults as educators and role models for their children cannot be overstated. Issues around sexuality can be difficult to discuss—because they are personal and because there is great diversity in how they are perceived and approached. Yet, they greatly impact public health and, thus, it is time to begin that discussion and, to that end, this Surgeon General—s Call to Action is offered as a framework. During its development we received a wide range of input and have identified several areas of common ground. A major responsibility of the Surgeon General is to provide the best available science based information to the American people to assist in protecting and advancing the health and safety of our nation. This report represents another effort to meet that responsibility.
HALLSVILLE, Tex. — When Jami Waite graduated from high school this year in this northeastern Texas town, her parents sat damp-eyed in the metal bleachers of Bobcat Stadium, proud in every way possible. Their youngest daughter was leaving childhood an honor graduate, a band member, a true friend, a head cheerleader — and a steadfast virgin. "People can be abstinent, and it's not weird," she declared. With her face on billboards and on TV, Ms. Waite has been an emblem of sexual abstinence for Virginity Rules, which has risen from a single operation in nearby Longview to become an eight-county abstinence franchise. For the first time, however, Virginity Rules and 700 kindred abstinence education programs are fighting serious threats to their future. Eleven state health departments rejected abstinence education this year, while legislatures in Colorado, Iowa and Washington passed laws that could kill, or at least wound, its presence in public schools. Opponents received high-caliber ammunition this spring when the most comprehensive study of abstinence education found no sign that it delayed a teenager's sexual debut. And, after enjoying a fivefold increase in their main federal appropriations, the abstinence programs in June received their first cut in financing from the Senate appropriations committee since 2001. But the final outcome is in question. Some 17 million in the name of virginity. No state has more to lose in this battle than Texas, which draws more abstinence money than any other. Drive through the piney woods of northeastern Texas, and the earnest faces of adolescents appear on billboards with slogans like "No is where I stand until I have a wedding band." The Longview Wellness Center, which sponsors Virginity Rules, collects almost $1 million annually in abstinence financing, and serves 33 area school districts.
In this article, Sandra Harding introduces the relationship among feminism, science, technology, and theories of knowledge. In the first section, Harding argues that while Western sciences certainly have helped to develop some part of society, they have simultaneously helped to disempower others-such as many people of Third World descent, women and the poor, both here and around the world. A second theme in the book is that feminists must integrate the perspectives of the other liberatory social movements even more deeply into their own projects, and thus also become more capable of making effective alliances with them. In this part, Harding talks about how feminism confronts the sciences. She also talks about women worthies and structural obstacles. She thinks that class and race, poor women and women of color are still a group which has no right to get knowledge or get respect. Harding thinks that 'Thinking from women's lives' means thinking from all women's lives." Harding also discusses traditional and recent theories of knowledge. One kind of new theory argues that everyone should start asking scientific questions from the perspective of women's activities in order to gain a more critical perspective on otherwise unquestioned assumptions, and she examines the postmodernist challenges to such a subject. She also hopes to see changes in science education. It is important to make sure everyone gets a good science Education. She hopes that every body can learn science education that can improve the status of female scientists. [by Yu-Fong and Jayaram, STS 901-Fall 2006]. This is NOT a good abstract of these chapters.
In this article, Cris Mayo examines the relationship among anti-LGBTQ policies, gay marriage, and sexuality education. Her concern is that because gay marriage is insufficiently different from heterosexual marriage, adding it as an issue to curriculum or broader culture debate elides rather than addresses sexual difference. In other words, marriage may be an assimilative aspiration that closes down discussions of what sexuality is and can mean, that sidesteps other related social issues such as health care for all, and that reinforces sexuality and gender identity as privatized, not political, concerns. Mayo examines different strands of LGBTQ history that complicate the meanings of sexuality and that critique a variety of antigay or heterosexist policies for their exclusions. She concludes by suggesting that the possibilities of sexuality are not served by advocacy for one gay relationship formation and calling for a sexuality education that is instead directed at sexual diversity.