Sex ed as taught in most classrooms in the developed world is a turnoff to the very students educators are trying to reach, according to researchers out with their findings from a study.
The study was an amalgamation of results from more than 55 other qualitative studies of students between 12 and 18 who had received sex education in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Iran, Brazil and Sweden between 1990 and 2015, Time magazine reported Monday.
The lead researcher, Pandora Pound of the University of Bristol, concluded that to improve how the subject matter is taught, teachers should take a breather and let some substitute instructors have a go.
“It is clear from our findings that SRE [sex and relationship education] provision in schools frequently fails to meet the needs of young people,” Ms. Pound said, The Guardian reported. “Schools seem to have difficulty accepting [that] some people are sexually active, which leads to SRE that is out of touch with many young people’s lives.”
Sex education “needs to be delivered by experts who are sex positive, who enjoy their work and who are in a position to maintain clear boundaries with students,” Ms. Pound wrote Time magazine in an email. “We need to get the delivery right — otherwise young people will disengage.”
It is unclear to what extent the feedback of taxpaying parents and guardians of minor children was reviewed in Ms. Pound’s study.
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