Concept
Sex education
Overview
Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, safe sex, birth control, sexual and reproductive health, emotional relationships and responsibilities, age of consent, and reproductive rights.
Sex education that includes all of these issues is known as comprehensive sexuality education. In contrast, abstinence-only sex education, which focuses solely on promoting sexual abstinence, is often favored in more socially conservative regions, including some parts of the United States.
Sex education may be provided as part of school programs, public health campaigns, or by parents or caregivers. In some countries, it is known as "relationships and sexual health education".
Many governments see it as beneficial to provide public education on such matters before or at the beginning of puberty to improve public health, to limit the spread of sexually transmitted infections, and to avoid teenage pregnancy and unwanted pregnancies later on.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Answering questions is a major part of sex education. Two rules cover the ground. First, always give a truthful answer to a question; secondly, regard sex knowledge as exactly like any other knowledge.
Bertrand Russell, Education and the good life
The chapter “SEX EDUCATION” is titled for Sex education; opens on Sex education.
Division into groups is made where it is found that the children naturally divide themselves. These groups are called “Life Classes” instead of grades. The first life class ends between the eighth and ninth years; the second between the eleventh and twelfth, and since an even more marked change of interests and tastes occurs at the period of adolescence, there are distinct high-school classes. The work within the…
John Dewey, Schools of to-morrow
States what Sex education is.
On the contrary he has from the very beginning a sexual life rich in content, though it differs in many points from that which later is regarded as normal. What in adult life are termed “perversions” depart from the normal in the following respects: (1) in a disregard for the barriers of species (the gulf between man and beast), (2) in the insensibility to barriers imposed by disgust, (3) in the transgression of the…
Sigmund Freud, Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis
States what Sex education is.
Related ideas
- Progressive education
- Geneva
- Women's rights
- Indonesia
- Hygiene
- Sociology
- Birth control
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Conformity
- Social conservatism
- Pakistan
- Ronald Reagan
- Taiwan
- Reproduction
- Sri Lanka
- Scotland
- South Korea
- Singapore
- England and Wales
- Second Vatican Council
- Sexual orientation
- World War II
- George W. Bush
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy of education.