Sex, drugs and the honour roll: the perennial challenges of addressing moral purity issues in schools

Abstract

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in North America, public health and social reform advocates were quick to identify and exploit the nascent modern institution of public schools as opportune spaces in which to advance their progressive projects. In particular, psychoactive substance use (at first primarily alcohol drinking) and sexuality were regarded as two domains of morally-charged social activity in which desired attitudinal and behavioural outcomes could be achieved through school-based education. Since the advent of these early public health or ‘social hygiene’ efforts in schools, political responses and modern Western cultural norms about both drugs and sexuality have undergone significant transformation over the course of the twentieth century. At the same time, research on purported health or social risks of substance use and sexual activity – and their prevention and mitigation among young people – has burgeoned as a field of professional practice and academic inquiry. This article undertakes a brief comparative review of historical and contemporary approaches to school-based sexuality and drug education in North America. In so doing, it also explores how scientific knowledge about the topics of sex and drugs, and the corollary project of school-based ‘prevention’ in these domains, has been shaped by evolving ideological and cultural forces. It concludes that the issues of sexuality and drug use – still steeped in conceptions of moral purity and pollution – are likely to remain strongly contested terrain for school-based education.