Nearly 90% of California Parents Support Comprehensive Sex Education in Schools
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report

Eighty-nine percent of California parents -- regardless of their political and religious views, level of education and residence -- support comprehensive sex education programs in schools, according to the first statewide survey on the subject released on Thursday, the McClatchy/San Jose Mercury News reports. Comprehensive sex education includes information about contraception, sexually transmitted infections and abstinence, according to the McClatchy/Mercury News. The study was funded by the California Wellness Foundation and conducted by the Public Health Institute during the spring and summer of 2006. For the survey, researchers conducted telephone surveys in English and Spanish among 1,284 parents across the state to determine what information they wanted to be included in school sex education curricula (Mangaliman, McClatchy/San Jose Mercury News, 5/24).

The researchers found that 96% of California parents oppose abstinence-only sex education requirements in schools. No subgroup by region, religion, income, education or political party fell below 80% support for comprehensive sex education, the study showed. Eighty-six percent of self-identifying evangelical Christians said they supported comprehensive sex education programs, while those who identified themselves as "very conservative" responded with the lowest rating of 71% support for the programs. "We were astonished by how universal this support is for comprehensive sex education," lead study author Norman Constantine of the PHI's Center for Research on Adolescent Health and Development said. "We expected these high levels of support in liberal urban areas but did not anticipate the equally high levels of support in California's more conservative, rural settings -- especially among self-identified evangelical Christian parents," Constantine said, adding, "What this shows is that the vast majority of parents put the health and safety of their children above politics and ideology" (PHI release, 5/24).

California has rejected federal funding for abstinence-only sex education programs during the past 10 years. Under state law, all school sex education programs are required to be comprehensive (McClatchy/San Jose Mercury News, 5/24). However, a recent survey of school districts found that 48% of schools are not teaching all required topics and 88% were violating one or more of the sex education provisions of California's Education Code. Constantine said the new survey's findings "should clear the way for wary educators in every region of the state to embrace the comprehensive sex education programs consistent with California law," adding, "School superintendents, administrators and educators can now be assured that they have the support of parents, as well as the law, in providing quality, comprehensive programs" (PHI release, 5/24).

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families in Southern California, said that comprehensive sex education is a euphemism for "teaching children that they are expected to have sex, that they are stupid not to have condoms in their purse and that they can be transported off campus for a secret abortion behind their parents' backs." The study's complete results will be published in the September issue of the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health (McClatchy/San Jose Mercury News, 5/24).

A summary of the report is available online.

The Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report is published for www.kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National Journal Group Inc. (c) 2003 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. For more news on reproductive health issues, visit the Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report.