Sources of Sexual Knowledge for High School Students in Tokyo, Japan

Abstract

This study is aimed to clarify the methods and sources from which high school students in Tokyo actually acquired sex information and the methods and sources from which they desired to acquire sex information. The participants of the study were selected from six public high schools in Tokyo, and were administered a survey at the time of their second grade from January to February 2017, and again at the time of their third grade from September to November 2017. We conducted self-administrated questionnaire-based surveys with 1073 students. Between the two surveys, at eight to ten weeks prior to the September/November survey, an educational intervention was presented to these subjects. Final analysis subjects totaled 1011 students at the second-grade and 936 students at the third-grade in school. Although many subjects responded that they received sex education, not so many of them actually had correct sexual knowledge. Most subjects, that is, both boys and girls at both second and third grades, thought sex information should be acquired from school, and significantly fewer considered the Internet as a source of sex information as compared to previous studies. Most subjects had high expectations that sex education would be taught at high school by teachers. One difference between boys and girls was that many girls responded that sex education should be acquired primarily from school, then secondarily from parents. Fewer subjects responded that sex education should be acquired from friends and the Internet. For the future, upskilling teachers and parents in sex education at school and home is expected.