Effects of Abstinence-Only Education on Adolescent Attitudes and Values Concerning Premarital Sexual Intercourse

Abstract

This article compares the values and attitudes of two groups of 7th and 8th grade adolescents toward premarital sexual activity. One group received state-funded, abstinence-only education; the other group did not receive that education. Abstinence-only education did not significantly change adolescents' values and attitudes about premarital sexual activity, nor their intentions to engage in premarital sexual activity. The majority of both the treatment and control group subjects expressed disagreement with the statement: "It is okay for people my age to have sexual intercourse," and they did not intend to have sexual intercourse while an unmarried teenager.

Sex education beyond school: implications for practice and research

“…Compared with no sex education at all, comprehensive sex education significantly correlated with fewer pregnancies and was marginally associated with a lower likelihood of having had sex (OR adj ¼ 0.4, p ¼ 0.001; OR adj ¼ 0.7, p ¼ 0.06 respectively); however, abstinence-only education was associated with neither outcome. Sather and Zinn (2002) confirmed that an intervention of abstinence-only education did not significantly change 132 students' attitudes and intention to premarital sex. Although its sample size was small, the study supported the view that abstinence-only sex education was an ineffective method.…”

TeenSTAR: una opción de madurez y libertad: Programa de educación integral de la sexualidad, orientado a adolescentes

“…Los programas de educación sexual tendientes a retrasar el inicio de la actividad sexual muestran ser efectivos 4,23,[25][26][27] . De acuerdo a estos estudios, los programas que desarrollan la valoración por la persona, así como la decisión libre e informada, tendrían mayor impacto en los adolescentes.…”

“…Los estudios han demostrado que existe una tendencia a iniciar cada vez más temprano la actividad sexual. Estudios efectuados en Chile entre los años 1992 y 1995, mostraron que más de un tercio de los jóvenes inicia su actividad sexual antes del matrimonio y que la edad de inicio de la actividad sexual, entendida ésta como la primera relación sexual, era en promedio, entre los 14,4 y 16 años en los hombres y entre los 14,8 y 17,9 años en las mujeres [1][2][3][4][5] . Trabajos más recientes indican un inicio más precoz de la actividad sexual siendo de 12 años para los hombres y 12,8 años para las mujeres 6 .…”

Barack Obama vs Bristol Palin: why the President’s sex education policy wins

“…In fact, there is no empirical evidence that abstinence-only programs effectively reduce sexual behaviors, teen pregnancy or STD rates (Hauser, 2004;Irvine, 2002;Kempner, 2001;Kirby, 2007). Other research has found that abstinence-only education does not change adolescents' values and attitudes (Sather & Zinn, 2002). The few studies that do offer support for abstinence-only programs are typically poorly designed and do not meet objective scientific standards of quality research (Kirby, 2002).…”