Sex Education for Young Children - Literature review Example

Sex Education for Young Children Before going into discussion about the article, Sex education for five-year-olds to be made compulsory in schools written by Polly Curtis in 2009, let us get a better understanding of what sex education actually is. Sex education, also known as sexuality education, is the process of providing sex related information to the young children. The purpose of providing sex education is to create awareness among the children about sex and sexual relationships (Timmerman 2008). Another purpose of sex education is to reduce the level of risks related to the sexual behaviors. Sex education is a way to make the children protect themselves against many problems such as teenage pregnancies, child abuse, and different kinds of sexually transmitted diseases. Discussion Sex education is a real public health issue due to many reasons. Some of those reasons include increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and sexual harassment to the children. Cassidy and Driscoll (2008) assert, “Sex education should not be neglected because of the risk of sexually transmitted diseases”. Therefore, providing sex education to the children becomes necessary in order to make them aware of all issues related to sex in the very early stages of their lives. Two of the most important objectives of providing sex education are to teach children to act responsibly and to provide them with the correct facts about sex (Kontula 2010). The government of England and Wales has announced to make the sex education compulsory for the children aged five to eleven in order to make them informed about the consequences of unprotected sex. “All secondary schools will have to teach teenagers about contraception” (Curtis 2009). A diverse sex education curriculum is very beneficial the students (Cook 2010). The government has given permission to the faith schools to preach against illegal sexual relationships and use of contraception. The plan has been developed by the government to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in the country by creating awareness about sex and its consequences among the young children. The faith groups and safer sex campaigners have different point of views regarding this issue. Faith groups believe that sex education should not provided to the young children because it creates an interest about sex in the minds of the children that make them fall into illegal sexual relationships. They say that the environment should be changed instead of creating awareness about sex among the children. Steinberg (2007) asserts, “Changing the contexts in which risky behavior occurs may be more successful than changing the way adolescents think about risk”. They also believe that having sexual relationships before marriage, using contraception, and homosexuality are against the teachings of all religions. However, it is a fact that majority of the people living in the United Kingdom are against the viewpoint of faith groups and want sex education to be compulsory in the schools. There are very less number of people who support the viewpoint of faith groups. Majority thinks that children should be made aware of all the facts related to sex. Sex is one of the basic rights of every individual living in the world. Therefore, children should be educated about sex in the earliest stages of life in order to help them enjoy safe sex when they grow up. Selwyn and Powell (2007) found that school lessons are the most frequent source of sex and relationships information for many young people. Risk of potential negative outcomes of sex is one of the major problems for government of the United Kingdom. It is because most of the young adults do not have must awareness about the consequences of unprotected sex. That is why the government has implemented a plan to include sex education as a subject in the curriculum. It will be the first time that effective sex education will be included in the curriculum of all secondary schools. Kirby (2002) asserts, “Schools have the potential for reducing adolescent sexual risk-taking”. Sex education requires an effective approach towards curriculum design and content (Mason 2010). The government has created different levels of sex education based on the age of the children, which is a good thing. The plan is that the five-year-olds will be informed about different kinds of relationships and physical changes that come in the body of a person in childhood. Nine-year-olds will be provided education related to different emotional and physical changes that take place in the body of the children when they begin to reach the age of puberty. The next and considerably higher level of sex education will be provided to the students when they will reach the age of eleven. At this level, the teachers will provide most important sex education, which will be related to different stages of reproduction and use of contraception. The plan will bring various positive results in the shape of reduced teenage pregnancies and reduction in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. Inclusion of all sex related issues is very important for the children. “Although students consider HIV/AIDS as one of the important SRE areas, they want a broader SRE coverage than a purely health-oriented model can offer” (Mkumbo 2010). The plan does not force the parents to make their children get sex education in the schools; rather parents will have the right to opt whether they want the teachers to provide sex education to their children or not. Majority of the parents want schoolteachers to provide sex education to their children while the number of cases in which parents have withdrawn their children from sex education lessons is very less. Some studies show that approximately 0.04% of the parents are against sex education, which is a very low percentage. Some of the most senior teachers including the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) are against the government’s plan and they do not want sex education to be included in an already overloaded curriculum. They think that the curriculum is already so much overloaded that there is no space for sex education. Despite off the senior teachers’ unsupportive viewpoint regarding sex education, the plan will be implemented because sex education is in benefit of the children as it provides essential information to the children related to consequences of protected sex and use of contraception. References Cassidy, S & Driscoll, D 2008, ‘Prader–Willi syndrome’, European Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 17, pp. 3-13. Cook, S 2010, ‘Taking account of what young women want from school sex education: Two groups from Scotland and Uganda’, Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 528-533. Curtis, P., 2009. Sex education for five-year-olds to be made compulsory in schools. Guardian.co.uk, [online]27 April. Available at: [Accessed 16 October 2010]. Kirby, D 2002, ‘The impact of schools and school programs upon adolescent sexual behavior’, Journal of Sex Research, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 27-33. Kontula, O 2010, ‘The evolution of sex education and students sexual knowledge in Finland in the 2000s’, Sex Education, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 373-386. Mason, S 2010, ‘Braving it out! An illuminative evaluation of the provision of sex and relationship education in two primary schools in England’, Sex Education, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 157-169. Mkumbo, K 2010, ‘What Tanzanian young people want to know about sexual health; implications for school-based sex and relationships education’, Sex Education, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 405-412. Selwyn, N & Powell, E 2007, ‘Sex and relationships education in schools: the views and experiences of young people’, Health Education, vol. 107, no. 2, pp. 219-231. Steinberg, L 2010, ‘Risk Taking in Adolescence New Perspectives From Brain and Behavioral Science’, SAGE journals online, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 55-59. Timmerman, G 2008, ‘Teaching skills and personal characteristics of sex education teachers’, Teaching and Teacher Education, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 500-506. Read More