CFLE Curriculum Informs Salient Study about Sex Ed, Gender, and Youth Empowerment

9:15 AM

The Center for Family Life Education (CFLE) curriculum, Streetwise to Sex-wise: Sexuality Education for High Risk Youth proves groundbreaking success in a research article published in the Journal of Sex Research titled Sexual Education, Gender Ideology, and Youth Sexual Empowerment.*

In this seminal article, the authors highlight how Streetwise to Sex-wise incorporates unique and effective components of gender ideology, sexual knowledge, and contraceptive beliefs into standard school-based sexual education programs. This curriculum enables students, in this research, 95 8th graders, to discuss their knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about these important issues.

Empirical evidence, based on pre and post-test measures, suggests that participation in Streetwise to Sex-wise activities leads to increased knowledge of resources and sexual health, more progressive attitudes towards girls and women, and less agreement with hegemonic masculinity ideology. Alternatively, statistical models also suggests that traditional attitudes toward women were related to these ideologies, which were negatively related to safer contraceptive beliefs.

This article shows that although many boys and girls hold beliefs of gender which align with more traditional ideologies, comprehensive education, like Streetwise to Sex-wise, can teach tools of empowerment which may lead to more positive outcomes in sexual health, gender and sexual scripts, and equality.

Check out the full article here, and to order your copy of Streetwise to Sex-wise: Sexuality Education for High Risk Youth, please visit The Sex Ed Store.

*Rose Grace Grose, Shelly Grabe & Danielle Kohfeldt, Journal of Sex Research (2013): Sexual Education, Gender Ideology, and Youth Sexual Empowerment, Journal of Sex Research, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2013.809511

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