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Chapter 2: Differences and Divisions: Social Inequality in Sex Education Debates and Policies
- Rutgers University Press
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37 2 Differences and Divisions Social Inequality in Sex Education Debates and Policies In , newspaper readers throughout North Carolina learned that the Franklin County School Board had decided to slice three chapters from its ninth-grade sex education textbook (). A board-appointed committee had reviewed all sex education materials in use in the county’s public schools and determined that Making Life Choices: Health Skills and Concepts did not meet the requirements of Teach Abstinence until Marriage. The book included references to “partners” instead of “spouses” and encouraged young people to postpone sexual activity until they were ready, not until they were married. The chapters on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), parenting and marriage, sexual behavior, and pregnancy prevention contained the bulk of the offending material. Franklin’s teachers were reluctant to give up on the textbooks entirely because they relied on other chapters for health education lessons, such as first aid and nutrition. To allow the textbooks to remain in the classroom and still meet the legislated requirements, the school board had a parent volunteer, who supported abstinence-only education, cut the offending chapters from the books. The photograph in the leading North Carolina newspaper of the decimated textbook spine spoke of censorship and information denied. One Franklin County principal warned that the altered books evoked Nazi Germany (Quillin b). Local newspaper editorials and national anticensorship advocates accused Franklin County educators of failing to protect youth from harm (“Tearing up the Truth” ; Heins b). For advocates of comprehensive sex education throughout the United States, the bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb Chap-02.qxd 4/12/08 7:26 PM Page 37 gaps left in abstinence-only curricula could not have been illustrated more clearly. Franklin County’s decision to censor its textbooks came out of its local debate of Teach Abstinence until Marriage. In , North Carolina’s state legislature enacted House Bill , requiring schools to teach students “the risks of premarital sexual intercourse” (). Teach Abstinence until Marriage required that school-based instruction focus on “medically accurate ” information about sexual danger and risk, including risks of pregnancy , contraceptive failure rates, and the risks of HIV and other STDs. Public schools were also to provide sex education that emphasized “the positive benefits of abstaining from sex outside of marriage and the risks of premarital sex.” In the final version of House Bill the legislation’s liberal opponents managed to include a stipulation that permitted local districts to teach students about, for example, contraception or abortion if they adopted such learning objectives after first debating them in public school board meetings. The stipulation outlined a particular process: if local education agencies wanted to veer from the required abstinence-only education , as described in state legislation, they had to hold a formal period of community review in which they invited parents to examine proposed materials and curricular objectives; after this public review, school boards would convene for public comment and then vote on their local sex education curriculum. No matter what revisions they made, the abstinence-only message had to remain at the core of their instruction. Across the state, Teach Abstinence until Marriage sparked local debates and reassessments of sex education. Newspapers featured divisive statements and images—for example, the gaps in Franklin County’s textbooks— and radio call-in programs and op-ed pages featured provocative statements about young people’s sexuality, lesbian and gay families, parental rights, and young people’s right to know. Conservatives argued for abstinence-only instruction as part of a broader effort to reassert conventional understandings of family, marriage, and morality. According to conservatives, these social conventions and institutions would provide young people with the best protection against promiscuity, disease, and moral degradation. In public forums, liberal and progressive legislators and residents called for comprehensive sex education. They agreed that, ideally, middle school and high school students would not be sexually active; however, these residents RISKY LESSONS 38 Chap-02.qxd 4/12/08 7:26 PM Page 38 [3.91.79.134] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:02 GMT) claimed that, because some young people were sexually active, schools needed to provide lessons about STD and pregnancy prevention. Only the full range of age-appropriate information would equip young people to make healthy sexual decisions. A state newspaper reported that Robin Hayes, the Republican state representative who authored Teach Abstinence until Marriage, stated that Franklin County’s decision to remove chapters and deny students health information was a misinterpretation of the legislation : “Somebody is missing the...