Parental Guidance Suggested: High School Health Textbooks Messages about Teen Decision-Making and Sex

• In Event: 220 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Sexuality

Abstract

The vast majority of high schools require some form of sex education. Despite numerous concerns about the efficacy of abstinence-only education programs and their failure to demonstrate a reduction in the onset of teenage sexual activity, such curricula remains widespread in U.S. public schools. One resource in formal sex education is high school health textbooks. This paper analyzes six high school health textbooks and their implicit and explicit messages about abstinence, specifically in relation to teens’ decision-making. I focus on teens’ decision-making skills because the distrust of teens’ decision-making skills affects the knowledge shared with teens about sex. Textbooks point to parents as key sources of advice and guidance for teens. My goal is to demonstrate how the role of parent or guardian is constructed in the textbooks, including how they are responsible for teaching their children how to make decisions, setting dating guidelines and limits, and instructing their teens on how to refuse pressure to engage in deviant behaviors, such as sexual intercourse. My findings underscore how textbooks, with their emphasis on abstinence and insistence that teens always seek their parents’ guidance and advice, do not adequately prepare individuals to navigate their sex lives as adults.

Author

• Amanda E. Fehlbaum, Youngstown State University