Sexual+Education+and+STDs

= An Annotated Bibliography for Key Sources When Researching the = = Effectiveness of Abstinence-Only Education and STD Prevention =


 * Wiederman, M., (1998)Demonstration to Communicate Vulnerability **
 * of Contracting a Sexually Transmitted Disease (Teaching Psychology), 25(4), 282-285, accessed from web.ebscohost.com **

This article describes both the need for a more effective lesson to teach the admittedly dry and somewhat taboo topic of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), and provides a more interactive method to teach the topic with the aid of a demonstration. The point of the demonstration is to make STDs more “real” for students, since the author’s research shows that most students underestimate their personal risk for contracting a STD. The gist of the demonstration is to hand out slips of paper to students labeled with an STD (or not, in which those students would be “clean”). The number of slips mirrors real-world percentages for each STD (e.g. if 5% of the population has disease X, 5% of the slips should have disease X). Here was the perfect article needed for the “interactive demonstration” portion of our project. We will be using the activity described in the study as an outline for our own. Differences will include: No before-and-after questionnaire, and the students will not stand up as each disease is discussed in time, but rather listed off in turn, ultimately revealing how much of the population has an STD, and which are incurable.


 * Steele, A., Kendall, J., Haider, S., Colella, L., Mitchell, S. (March, 13, 2008), Editorial: No excuse for the high STD rate of American girls, (Collegiatetimes.com) Distributed Online **

The editorial committee comments on the recent findings made by the CDC on the rate of teen STDs. Study found 25% of female teens have one STD, and 15% have more than one. Genital Warts, caused by the human papillomavirus(HPV), was the most common STD found in the study. The committee cites how outrageous these numbers are, considering the cost of a condom compared to the cost to freeze off a wart ($13 versus $100). The editorial goes on to say that their opinion is that the blame falls to the lack of information taught about STDs at the high school level, citing that “abstinence is not a reality for teens.” A call is made for a shift away from these programs, to one discussing on barrier methods. This is a very motivating article that seems to be a “call to arms” against abstinence-only education. While the passages included some statistics, they did not explicitly define whether or not the data were taken from abstinence-only districts, compared to comprehensive sex ed. districts. The data mentioned, however, is compelling and will certainly be used in our presentation.


 * Bakalar, N. (January, 18th, 2011), Behavior: They Report Abstinence, but S.T.D. Says Otherwise, (New York Times) page D6. **

The article cites a recent study that reports that 10% of students who claim sexual inactivity within the past year, tested positive for STDs, and about half of that number claimed they have maintained abstinence. Two important quotes from the passage include the following: “Those who reported sexual activity were only twice as likely to be infected as those who reported none, a very small difference under the circumstances,” and “There were no significant differences in age, sex, race or education level among those who were infected but reported abstinence.” This article, while seems light on the subject of abstinence education having an effect on the STD infection rate, does have two important points. The first is that it supports the fact that “kids will be kids” given than there was no significant difference in age, sex, race, or education level (Suggesting, perhaps, that times have changed and education needs to fit the needs of those times), and the second is that there is still a strong taboo about discussing sex. Even though only 5% of STD-positive subjects reported abstinence, who knows how many that reported abstinence did not have an STD at the time of the study.


 * Glazer, S. “Sexually Transmitted Disease: Is Abstinence the Best Approach to Prevention?” CQResearcher, Dec 3rd, 2004. 14(42), 997-1020. **

Not surprisingly, this discussion is very comprehensive. The article discusses every aspect of STD prevention via education, in very plain English. Important quotes from the article include the following: “The most rigorous evaluations have not found a single abstinence-only program that is effective in reducing the kind of behavior that leads to STDs,” “many people don't get married until their mid- to late-20s, and 90 percent will have had intercourse by age 20,” “But the Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy's Brown cautions against dismissing abstinence-only sex education. ‘The Bush administration has tapped into a widely shared value: Most people would prefer teenagers not to have sex in middle school or high school.’ She adds, ‘The idea that nobody can get teens to delay first intercourse with a strong abstinence-only program doesn't strike me as reasonable.’” A study the article goes on to mention is something of a method that bridges the gap between the two camps of sexual education. Known as the “abstinence-plus” approach, is puts emphasis on the following: delaying first intercourse, reducing the number of sex partners, reducing the frequency of sex, and increasing condom use. These were the results of one school that picked up this idea “The most impressive results came from an after-school program that provides tutoring, counseling and medical services in addition to sexuality education. The program, run by the Children's Aid Society in New York City, delayed the date of first intercourse and reduced pregnancy rates among girls by 50 percent. Participants in the program were also more likely than a comparison group to be vaccinated for hepatitis B, which can be sexually transmitted. But none of the abstinence-only programs Kirby studied produced those kinds of results.” This acts as the go-to article for our research, with only a fraction of the material found on its pages mentioned above. Given the audience this article is intended for, the language is very plain, approachable, and reveals a wealth of information. The bulk of the material discussed in our report will be drawn from this source. It is quite long, however, and so the few nuggets of true, quote-able gold takes some time to find.


 * Walcott, C., Chenneville, T., Tarquini, S. “Relationship Between Recall of Sexual Education and College Students’ Sexual Attitudes and Behavior,” Psychology in the Schools, 48(8), 2011, 828-842 **

The study described in this paper looks into, as the title suggests, how the sexual behavior of college students differs between those who received Abstinence-only education, compared to a comprehensive approach. The questionnaires were given to students from public universities in Florida and North Carolina. Students were between the age of 18 and 25. The survey was multifaceted, but the ultimate conclusion of the paper was the following: “Like other studies…our resultssuggest that there is little difference between those who reported comprehensive and those whoreported abstinence-only school-based sex education. Although those in the comprehensive groupwere slightly more knowledgeable about HIV, there was no relationship between safer sex practicesand sex-education theme (i.e., comprehensive vs. abstinence-only).” The over-all take away message from this paper is that teens will have sex anyway, regardless of education style. While it is not explicitly a suggestion that abstinence-only education is not effective, but it can be taken that way. This, along with other sources listed above, make for a compelling argument that teens will be teens, and sex is going to happen either way.