When discussing sexual education in the United States, there are a number of reasons as to why it is a controversial subject being taught in grade schools. Differences in religion, questions of age appropriateness, and varying opinions in regards to whether co-ed or single sex education is more effective, all plague the integration of successful sex education programs into schools across the nation. One other obstruction that has become increasingly present from the 1960\u2019s to today is the issue of \u201csex role stereotyping\u201d within classrooms for both males and females. [1. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Being a Man: a unit of instructional activities on male role stereotyping, by David Miller Sadker (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1977), 3.]\u00a0Just as the official passage of Title IX in the Education Amendments of 1972 sparked conversation of equal rights for women and more specifically ending discriminatory acts against women in education, teaching methods changed for males in the U.S. as well through documents like \u201cBeing A Man: A Unit of Instructional Activities on Male Role Stereotyping.\u201d My specific research question for this paper is: how have male and female gender roles been portrayed in U.S. sex education materials from the 1960\u2019s to the present? My working thesis is that due to various societal and governmental changes in the U.S. in the early 70\u2019s such as Title IX and others, as each decade passes, sex education material has become more comprehensive and open to interpretations of gender neutrality, and has become less focused on presenting sex role stereotypes.<\/p>\n
Beginning in the 1960\u2019s, the most interesting sources for sex education curricula and other supportive materials include the 1967 Anaheim, California \u201cSex Education Course Outline for Grades Seven through Twelve, and Esther Schulz and Sally Williams\u2019 Family Life and Sex Education: curriculum and instruction, published in 1969. First, in the Anaheim source in \u201967, parents and teachers in a citizens advisory committee met, and after \u201ca very thoughtful and thorough study of the whole problem of sex education\u201d devised a revamped program for teaching their students about sex. [2. Anaheim Union High School. \u201cFamily Life and Sex Education Course Outline: Grades Seven Through Twelve\u201d. Anaheim Union High School District, June 1967, ii.]\u00a0This school took on a \u201cpositive, objective approach\u201d for sex education, and emphasized \u201cdeveloping effective interpersonal relations and attitudes to serve as a specific basis for making meaningful moral judgments.\u201d [3. Anaheim Union High School. \u201cFamily Life and Sex Education Course Outline: Grades Seven Through Twelve\u201d. Anaheim Union High School District, June 1967, iv.]\u00a0This source focuses specifically on the values of marriage and the more traditional views of dating, sex, and relationships. A great example of this is Appendix III on page 4 with the \u201cDating Ladder.\u201d It begins at the bottom rung with \u201cchildren playing together,\u201d and ends with the highest rung and \u201cengagement and marriage.\u201d This traditional expectation of men being the powerful one in the relationship, asking the woman out on the date and making sure that she has a pleasant time, and of women being \u201ca good sport\u201d or making sure that their \u201cpersonal appearance\u201d is up to par so that she can get the boy to marry her, is also emphasized in Schulz and Williams\u2019 book. Here, in the suggested content for the ninth grade chapter, the curriculum begins to define homosexuality as a \u201cproblem\u201d that has a \u201ccause\u201d and \u201cprevention.\u201d [4. Esther D. Schulz, Sally R. Williams, Family Life and Sex Education: Curriculum and Instruction (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969), 153-154.]\u00a0There are very few changes made in the 60\u2019s in sex education, and both of these sources show this through the \u201cHow Self Confident Am I?\u201d worksheet. Both presented the worksheet, and in both sources the questions are exactly the same, emphasizing that self-confidence means being outgoing and social. [5. Esther D. Schulz, Sally R. Williams, Family Life and Sex Education: Curriculum and Instruction <\/em>(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969), 140.]<\/p>\n Finding materials for actual curricula of sex education courses in the \u201870s proved to be a bit more difficult than in the \u201860s. However, there were documents describing sexism in general schooling, which were curriculum changes that were carried over through all facets of education at that time. In the \u201870s, statistics showed that \u201conly 10% of the nation\u2019s teenagers ever had a course with [such] comprehensive content.\u201d [6. Peter Scales, \u201cSex Education in the \u201870s and \u201880s: Accomplishments, Obstacles and Emerging Issues,\u201d Family Relations 30, no. 4 (October 1981): 559.]\u00a0In this case, comprehensive content of sex education courses were talking about the menstrual cycle, the reproductive anatomy, etc. Some new educational strategies were noted in the \u201870s, for example, the U.S. Office of Education and the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families teamed up with various other respected groups for young people such as Boy Scouts and 4-H Clubs to \u201cteach the skills necessary for effective parenting.\u201d [7. Peter Scales, \u201cSex Education in the \u201870s and \u201880s: Accomplishments, Obstacles and Emerging Issues,\u201d Family Relations 30, no. 4 (October 1981): 559.]\u00a0The focus in the 1970\u2019s was mostly on \u201cpreventing unplanned teenage pregnancies,\u201d which clearly caters to the sex role stereotyping that females who get \u201cknocked up\u201d are not able to successfully care for themselves as well as their unborn child.<\/p>\n Also in the 1970\u2019s, some changes were made in acceptable education curricula in general, which can be seen most prominently in Government Documents from the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Two documents were published in 1977, discussing the problems of sexism in U.S. classrooms. The document entitled \u201cFreedom of Reach for Young Children: Nonsexist Early Childhood Education\u201d focuses mainly on what nonsexist education means, and what it sets out to do. For example, on page three of the document it says \u201cthe goals of nonsexist education are not to destroy tradition, but to increase individual options for expanded features.\u201d [8. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Freedom of Reach for Young Children: Nonsexist Early Childhood Education, by Tish Henslee (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1977), 3.]\u00a0In this source, the terms \u201ctradition\u201d and \u201ctraditional sex roles\u201d are used often to describe what was earlier understood as the \u201cbiased judgment of appropriate behavior according to gender alone.\u201d [9. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Freedom of Reach for Young Children: Nonsexist Early Childhood Education, by Tish Henslee (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1977), 2.]<\/p>\n An interesting source for more recent discussion of sex role stereotypes in sex education is the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, Maryland 8th Grade Health Curriculum from 2005. This source shows very well the distinctions and changes that have occurred between the 1960s and today. For example, the teaching topics have expanded from only how to act appropriately on a date, to mental health discussions such as \u201cmanaging stress\u201d to \u201crisk-taking.\u201d [10. Department of Curriculum and Instruction: Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, Maryland, \u201cGrade 8 Health Education Curriculum,\u201d TeachTheFacts, 2005, http:\/\/www.teachthefacts.org\/Grade8_Field_Test_Revised.pdf, 5.]\u00a0When the curriculum begins to discuss sexuality, there is no longer a negative description of homosexuality, in fact, there is an entire lesson plan dedicated to defining one\u2019s own human sexuality. This lesson speaks of \u201cgender roles\u201d and \u201cgender identities\u201d as well, making the student feel more accepted in any role he\/she feels they belong to. The discussion of gender role stereotyping is the most significant difference because educators are now teaching that the stereotypes presented in sex education classes in the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s are not necessarily appropriate for all people. For example, on page 11, the curriculum defines gender role stereotyping in ways such as \u201cgirls are better at English, boys are better at science\u201d or \u201cboys don\u2019t cry, girls do.\u201d [11. Department of Curriculum and Instruction: Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, Maryland, \u201cGrade 8 Health Education Curriculum,\u201d TeachTheFacts, 2005, http:\/\/www.teachthefacts.org\/Grade8_Field_Test_Revised.pdf, 11.]\u00a0This source clearly shows the change in presentation of sex role stereotypes in sex education from the 1960\u2019s to today and how the acceptance of different interpretations of gender roles, and elimination of confirming gender stereotypes in society has spread in sex education curricula.<\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When discussing sexual education in the United States, there are a number of reasons as to why it is a controversial subject being taught in grade schools. Differences in religion, questions of age appropriateness, and varying opinions in regards to whether co-ed or single sex education is more effective, all plague the integration of successful … Continue reading Thesis and Evidence Paper<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1898"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2054,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions\/2054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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