Thesis and Evidence Paper

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’s to today is the issue of “sex role stereotyping” within classrooms for both males and females. ¹ Just 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 “Being A Man: A Unit of Instructional Activities on Male Role Stereotyping.” 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’s to the present? My working thesis is that due to various societal and governmental changes in the U.S. in the early 70’s 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.

Beginning in the 1960’s, the most interesting sources for sex education curricula and other supportive materials include the 1967 Anaheim, California “Sex Education Course Outline for Grades Seven through Twelve, and Esther Schulz and Sally Williams’ Family Life and Sex Education: curriculum and instruction, published in 1969. First, in the Anaheim source in ’67, parents and teachers in a citizens advisory committee met, and after “a very thoughtful and thorough study of the whole problem of sex education” devised a revamped program for teaching their students about sex. ² This school took on a “positive, objective approach” for sex education, and emphasized “developing effective interpersonal relations and attitudes to serve as a specific basis for making meaningful moral judgments.” ³ This 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 “Dating Ladder.” It begins at the bottom rung with “children playing together,” and ends with the highest rung and “engagement and marriage.” 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 “a good sport” or making sure that their “personal appearance” is up to par so that she can get the boy to marry her, is also emphasized in Schulz and Williams’ book. Here, in the suggested content for the ninth grade chapter, the curriculum begins to define homosexuality as a “problem” that has a “cause” and “prevention.” ⁴ There are very few changes made in the 60’s in sex education, and both of these sources show this through the “How Self Confident Am I?” 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

Finding materials for actual curricula of sex education courses in the ‘70s proved to be a bit more difficult than in the ‘60s. 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 ‘70s, statistics showed that “only 10% of the nation’s teenagers ever had a course with [such] comprehensive content.” ⁶ In 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 ‘70s, 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 “teach the skills necessary for effective parenting.” ⁷ The focus in the 1970’s was mostly on “preventing unplanned teenage pregnancies,” which clearly caters to the sex role stereotyping that females who get “knocked up” are not able to successfully care for themselves as well as their unborn child.

Also in the 1970’s, 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 “Freedom of Reach for Young Children: Nonsexist Early Childhood Education” focuses mainly on what nonsexist education means, and what it sets out to do. For example, on page three of the document it says “the goals of nonsexist education are not to destroy tradition, but to increase individual options for expanded features.” ⁸ In this source, the terms “tradition” and “traditional sex roles” are used often to describe what was earlier understood as the “biased judgment of appropriate behavior according to gender alone.” ⁹

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 “managing stress” to “risk-taking.” ¹⁰ When 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’s own human sexuality. This lesson speaks of “gender roles” and “gender identities” 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’s and 70’s are not necessarily appropriate for all people. For example, on page 11, the curriculum defines gender role stereotyping in ways such as “girls are better at English, boys are better at science” or “boys don’t cry, girls do.” ¹¹ This source clearly shows the change in presentation of sex role stereotypes in sex education from the 1960’s 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.

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Works Cited