The sex education debates / Nancy Kendall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kendall, Nancy, 1974-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex instruction--United States.

Sex instruction.

Sex instruction for teenagers--United States.

Sex instruction for teenagers.

Sex instruction--Government policy--United States.

Sex instruction for teenagers--Government policy--United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (295 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Educating children and adolescents in public schools about sex is a deeply inflammatory act in the United States. Since the 1980s, intense political and cultural battles have been waged between believers in abstinence until marriage and advocates for comprehensive sex education. In The Sex Education Debates, Nancy Kendall upends conventional thinking about these battles by bringing the school and community realities of sex education to life through the diverse voices of students, teachers, administrators, and activists. Drawing on ethnographic research in five states, Kendall reveals important differences and surprising commonalities shared by purported antagonists in the sex education wars, and she illuminates the unintended consequences these protracted battles have, especially on teachers and students. Showing that the lessons that most students, teachers, and parents take away from these battles are antithetical to the long-term health of American democracy, she argues for shifting the measure of sex education success away from pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates. Instead, she argues, the debates should focus on a broader set of social and democratic consequences, such as what students learn about themselves as sexual beings and civic actors, and how sex education programming affects school-community relations.

Contents:

Sex education research and policies

Microanalyses of sex education

Florida's "It's Great to Wait" campaign: the state as manager, marketer, and moral arbiter

It's a local thing: sex education as compromise and choice in Wyoming

No idea is bad, no opinion is wrong, but knowledge is power: sex education in Wisconsin / (coauthored with Kathleen Elliott)

Engaging diversity: sex education for all in California

Morality tales: adolescent desire, disease, and fertility in sex education programs

Men are microwaves, women are crock-pots: gender roles in AOUME and CSE

What are we doing about the homosexual threat?: scientism, sexual identity, and sexuality education

Rape as consuming desire and gendered responsibility

Concluding thoughts: sex education as civics education.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781283855754

1283855755

9780226922294

0226922294

OCLC:

819816917