A Critical Analysis of Sexuality Education in the United States

A Critical Analysis of Sexuality Education in the United States explores the development of sexuality education in North America and uses economic, legal, and psychological paradigms to identify and trace exclusionary programming and practices in schools.

By analyzing legal and political documents, as well as state and private curricula, this insightful text considers the historical and contemporary experiences of adolescents in connection to the social structures of sexuality education. Challenging the current state of sex education in the United States, in terms of both content and delivery, the chapters succinctly illustrate how schools are failing to meet the developmental needs of all students. Student perspectives and evidence-based research demonstrate that an exclusionary curriculum is failing to equip students with the knowledge and understanding they require to undergo a process of empowerment about their sexuality, and engage in safe, informed, and consensual sexual activity. Finally, by employing a rights-based approach to sexuality education, the author offers important recommendations for change in state and federal curricula.

Offering unique and comprehensive insight into the state of sex education in the United States, this text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, academics, researchers, policy-makers, and libraries in the fields of sexuality education, education policy and politics, sociology of education, gender studies, and curriculum studies.