1st Edition

A Critical Analysis of Sexuality Education in the United States Toward an Inclusive Curriculum for Social Justice

By Tiffani Kocsis Copyright 2020
    188 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    188 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    A Critical Analysis of Sexuality Education in the United States explores the development of sexuality education in North America and uses economic, legal, and psychological paradigms to identify and trace exclusionary programming and practices in schools.

    By analyzing legal and political documents, as well as state and private curricula, this insightful text considers the historical and contemporary experiences of adolescents in connection to the social structures of sexuality education. Challenging the current state of sex education in the United States, in terms of both content and delivery, the chapters succinctly illustrate how schools are failing to meet the developmental needs of all students. Student perspectives and evidence-based research demonstrate that an exclusionary curriculum is failing to equip students with the knowledge and understanding they require to undergo a process of empowerment about their sexuality, and engage in safe, informed, and consensual sexual activity. Finally, by employing a rights-based approach to sexuality education, the author offers important recommendations for change in state and federal curricula.

    Offering unique and comprehensive insight into the state of sex education in the United States, this text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, academics, researchers, policy-makers, and libraries in the fields of sexuality education, education policy and politics, sociology of education, gender studies, and curriculum studies.

    Part I: Overview

    1. Two Distinct Approaches to Sexuality Education Programs

    2. Issues of Gender and Orientation

    3. Critical Feminist Theory, Queer Theory and Critical Pedagogy: Applications in Sex Ed

    Part II: Traditional and Critical Emancipatory Sexuality Theory: in contrast

    4. Traditional Views of Adolescent Sexuality Development

    5. Gender, Power, and Sexualities

    Part III: The Federal Politics of Sexuality Education

    6. Sex Education Rises to a National Conversation

    7. Conservative Mobilization

    8. Modern Policies

    Part IV: Case Law and Legal Challenges

    9. Establishing Trends

    10. Supreme Court Cases

    11. Circuit and District Court Cases

    12. Rising Challenges

    Part V: Implications for School Site Programming

    13. Abstinence-Only Education – Problematic Exclusions

    14. To Begin the Transformation

    15. Social Justice Ideals for Sexuality Education

    Biography

    Tiffani Kocsis is Assistant Principal at Campbell Hall in Los Angeles, California, USA.

    "Tiffani Kocsis thoroughly and impressively outlines the complexity of components that go into the creation of a sexuality education curriculum. Her connection of the historical and social context, theory, and framework of sexuality education provides an in-depth picture of what inclusive sexuality education should look like, and gives effective methods to achieve this."

    -Claire T. Thompson, Journal of Youth and Adolescence