Teacher characteristics and the inclusion of sex education topics in grades 6-8 and 9-11.

Abstract

The project purpose was to determine whether selected personal characteristics of health science teachers of school grades 6-8 and 9-11 were related to 1 measure of sex education teaching performance--the inclusion of topics within the instructional unit. The study population was limited to 269 health science teachers in public schools in Indiana, with 94 teaching within grades 6-8 and 175 teaching in grades 9-11. Some significant relationships were established between the teacher characteristic variables and the 60 sex education topics. None of the teacher characteristics variables were consistently related to the inclusion of the topics when considering the topics as a group, although significance was found more frequently at the 9-11 grade than at the 6-8 grade level. More significant relationships were established for the variable erotophila-erotophobia (persons who associate primarily positive emotions with sexuality are considered erotophilics, and individuals associating primarily negative emotions with sex are classified as erotophobics) than for any other teacher characteristic. Erotophilic individuals more often included the birth control topics within sex education instruction. For the teachers in grades 9-11, those with the master's degree in health education were more likely than those without the advanced degree to include sexual behavior-related topics.