Sorting Out Good Science From the Bad (about sex education)

[question everything]

Newsweek.com

Sorting Out Good Science From the Bad
No one is saying that researchers cheat, but how they design a study of sex education can practically preordain the results.
By Sharon Begley
Newsweek


(snip)

Which brings us to sex ed. In April, scientists released the most thorough study of abstinence-only programs ever conducted. Ordered up by Congress, it followed 2,000 kids, starting in grades 3 through 8, in rural and urban communities who had been randomly assigned to an abstinence-only program or not. Result: kids in abstinence-only "were no more likely to abstain from sex than their control group counterparts ... had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex" at the same age.

Earlier studies gave abstinence-only glowing evaluations, as social conservatives publicized. The Heritage Foundation, for one, claimed in 2002 that abstinence-only had been proven "effective in reducing early sexual activity." But this is not a case of dueling studies, with no way to tell which to believe. If you dig into the earlier studies' methodology, you can see how they reached their conclusions.

Many evaluated programs where kids take a virginity pledge. But kids who choose to pledge are arguably different from kids who spurn the very idea. "There's potentially a huge selection issue," says Christopher Trenholm of Mathematica Policy Research, which did the abstinence study for the government. "It could lead to an upward bias on effectiveness." Claims for abstinence-only also rest on measurements not of sexual activity, but attitudes. The Bush administration ditched the former in favor of assessing whether, after an abstinence-only program, kids knew that abstinence can bring "social, psychological, and health gains." If enough answered yes, the program was deemed effective. Anyone who is or was a teen can decide if knowing the right answer is the same as saying no to sex.

Other studies relied on kids' memory. But up to half of kids forget whether they took a virginity pledge, or pretend they never did. Those who fall off the abstinence wagon are likely to "forget" they pledged, while those who remain chaste might attribute it to a pledge they never made. Both factors inflate the measured efficacy of pledge programs. A study of another abstinence program found it did a phenomenal job of getting girls to postpone their first sexual encounter. One problem: it evaluated only girls who stayed in the program, says Maynard. Girls who had sex were thrown out. In a related strategy, some studies of true sex ed, not the just-say-no variety, follow kids for only a few months, says Kirby of ETR Associates, a research contractor. But to see any difference between kids who took the class and those who did not, you have to let enough time go by for kids (in the latter group, one hopes) to have sex and get pregnant. A short time horizon may miss a program's effectiveness.

(snip)

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368217/site/newsweek/

[renate]

1. the odds are so high... I don't understand why parents choose to close their eyes

Well, yes, I do. I totally understand why, actually.

This is sort of the "la la la I can't hear you" approach to kids' sexuality. I'm as traumatized by the idea of my kids having sex as anybody--they're my tiny babies! I was changing their diapers just last week!

But I don't pretend that virginity pledges and wishful thinking can make hormones go away. That's an engraved invitation to grandparenthood. Postponing early sexual activity is great, and I'm all for that--assuming the abstinence programs deliver. But I'm most interested in my child's not having a child accidentally at ANY age.

The article didn't mention that kids who'd sign an abstinence pledge were less likely than other kids to use birth control the first time they had sex. This would terrify me if I were the parent of an abstinence-pledge-signing kid. I'm lucky I have several years to worry about this, but when the time comes, there'll be a non-monitored and consistently updated supply of condoms in the kids' bathroom for sure. Reality bites, and so do adolescent hormones.

[TheMadMonk]

2. Pray tell how do you plan on replacing without monitoring?

Got a brother who can tell an anecdote about being smart enough to buy his own?

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I endorse that the remedy lies in the program I had in 1974-75 for sex ed.

The football coach taught a co-ed class of 30 seniors in the public school. He started the first day by announcing that statistically at least 1 in 2 of us was already engaging in sexual relations (no, he didn't want a show of hands . . . ) and he believed his job was to teach us enough to avoid getting STDs and to estimate better when to choose when to get pregnant, if at all. (He had my undivided attention at this point.)

He had us bring in "current events" newspaper clippings having anything to do with our class. I once brought a story about an Oregon case where a woman was prosecuting her husband for rape for the first time. You name it, we discussed it: birth control and the percentage/failure rates for each, all phases of preganancy, homosexuality, symptoms and treatment of a variety of known venereal diseses, etc. We became experts if we chose to and our knowledge probably exceeded that of our family doctors. And the tests in class - - - this guy played for keeps. We had to label anatomy diagrams of both male and female reproductive systems and the sperm and the ovum, the failure of rates of certain forms of birth control among other things.

And again, he made the discussion of the topics interesting and not tabu -- especially with the co-ed class. The only time we were separated was for a film for breast examination. (They didn't want the guys to get overstinmulated.)

My point: My education has served me well. I have been making decisions that have been beneficial in my interests for more than three decades as far as engaging in sexual relations without fear of disease and/or pregnancy. I have wondered if the lectures would have been tempered due to AIDS or just made even better with my teacher's desire that we know the facts. Every sex class should be as comprehensive as mine. All that knowledge did not turn me into a Lolita or a sexual predator or a nymphomaniac. It made me into a woman, a wise one at that.