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In 1981 Congress passed, and President Reagan signed into law, the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA). Through AFLA, the federal government for the first time invested on a small scale in local programs designed to prevent teenage pregnancy by encouraging "chastity and self-discipline" among teenagers. AFLA helped usher in 20 years of debate at the federal, state and local level over whether sexuality education should exclusively promote abstinence or should take a more comprehensive approach.

In the late 1990s, federal investment in this area increased significantly after Congress, as part of the 1996 welfare reform law, created a federal-state program funded at $440 million over five years to support local sexuality education programs that condemn all sex outside of marriage—for people of any age—and prohibit any positive discussion of contraception. Four years later, conservative lawmakers secured an additional victory when Congress approved a third abstinence-only education program funded at $50 million over two years through a set-aside in the maternal and child health block grant.

Yet this major increase in federal funding occurred despite evidence that shows that more comprehensive sexuality education, rather than abstinence-only education, helps teenagers to delay sexual activity. It also occurred without clear pictures of either local sexuality education policies or the content of classroom instruction. Several studies published within the past year fill in these gaps, highlighting a significant disparity between the inclinations of policymakers and the needs and desires of both students and parents (see box). This research also suggests that there is a large gap between what teachers believe should be taught regarding sexuality education and what is actually taught in the classroom.

Local Policy
More than two out of three public school districts have a policy mandating sexuality education, according to research published in 1999 by The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI). Most of these policies—more than eight in 10—were adopted during the 1990s, a period of intense debate in many state governments and local communities over whether sexuality education curricula should include information about contraception as well as the promotion of abstinence.

This AGI research, based on a nationwide survey of school superintendents, found that local policies overwhelmingly encourage abstinence. Eighty-six percent of school districts with a sexuality education policy require promotion of abstinence; 51% require that abstinence be taught as the preferred option but also permit discussion of contraception as an effective means of protecting against unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs); and 35% require abstinence to be taught as the only option for unmarried people, while either prohibiting the discussion of contraception altogether or limiting discussion to contraceptive failure rates. Only 14% have a truly comprehensive policy that teaches about both abstinence and contraception as part of a broader program designed to prepare adolescents to become sexually healthy adults.

The AGI study found significant regional variation in the prevalence of abstinence-only policies (see chart a). School districts in the South are most likely to have such policies (55%) and are least likely to have comprehensive programs (5%). In contrast, school districts in the Northeast are least likely to have an abstinence-only policy (20%).

Learn more about this author, Sami Abdelrahim.
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