Part 1: Table of Contents |
Sexuality Education Homework Assignments
Since it is often difficult to get parents to attend a parent orientation
program, many school sexuality education curricula include
homework assignments to encourage students to talk with their
parents at home.These assignments may involve dramatically
more parents than any other type of program because so many
young people participate in sexuality education programs. Research
indicates that a substantial percentage of students complete
these assignments.1
It may be difficult—possibly even harmful—for some youth to
talk with their own parents or guardians about sexuality-related
issues. Consequently, some instructors, if need be, often allow students
to talk with other adults.
For one intervention, researchers developed and added a strong
parent component to Managing Pressures before Marriage,2 a widely
implemented middle school abstinence-only-until-marriage program
designed to help young people postpone sexual involvement.The
researchers developed five homework assignments to help parents
reinforce the information and skills presented in the classroom
and to describe and model desired behaviors.They included not
only conversations between students and their parents about specific
sexual topics but also discussions about a wider variety of
topics such as media pressures, dating pressures, methods of handling
pressures, individual teen strengths, and future goals. In addition,
the students and their parents practiced multiple role plays
together. About half of the students completed three or more of
the five activities with their parents.3
The evaluation used an experimental design and compared both
classroom instruction by itself and classroom instruction with
homework assignments.4 However, the sample size was small, not
allowing it to detect small effects. Given that caveat, the results
indicated that the parent activities increased the frequency of
communication but not the comfort level. In addition, they did not
have a significant impact upon student knowledge, sexual attitudes,
sexual behaviors, or intention to have intercourse. On the positive
side, they did increase self-efficacy to avoid high-risk behaviors and
the intention to avoid intercourse prior to completing high school.
Other studies have also found that homework assignments
designed to help students discuss particular sexual topics with
their parents do increase parent-child communication about those
topics, at least in the short run.5 These assignments are sometimes
quite long. For example, in one program, the median length of time
that parents spent discussing sexuality was 30 minutes.6 Parents
commented that the assignments provided a justification for talking
about these issues and made it easier and more comfortable to
talk about them.7 Some parents even indicated it was the first
time they had talked about sexuality with their teens.
Another study is particularly important
because it included random assignment
of school districts to three
conditions—classroom instruction
plus parent component, classroom
instruction only, and neither; a large
sample size (N=1,669) with sufficient
statistical power to detect relatively
small effects; and long-term
measurement of many outcomes.
The Youth AIDS Prevention Project
(YAPP), a middle school AIDS-prevention program, included two
homework assignments in the seventh grade and one in the
eighth grade.8 Prior to these homework assignments, parents
received packets with information from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention on how to answer their children's
HIV-related questions. Also, parents were encouraged to attend
parent meetings and to participate in additional AIDS-prevention
activities. Process data revealed that between 65 and 74 percent of
the students completed each homework assignment.Thus, these
activities reached substantial numbers of parents. In contrast, only
approximately 10 to 15 parents attended each of the
parent meetings.
The impact results demonstrated that the parent component did
not have a significant and positive impact over time on any of the
following outcomes: knowledge, comfort talking with parents
about sexuality, importance of parents' feelings about sexuality,
perception of how upset parents would be if their children had
sexual intercourse, initiation of sexual intercourse, frequency of
sexual intercourse, or use of condoms.
This study provides rather strong evidence that homework
assignments can involve many parents and presumably increase
their communication with their children during the course.
However, three homework assignments involving communication
with parents do not have effects upon the students' subsequent
sexual behavior.
Some programs have included multiple approaches. For example, in
the Chicago area, schools encouraged eighth graders to view with
their parents a six-part series on AIDS aired on television that
was accompanied by a 16-page supplement in a major newspaper.9
With encouragement from the schools, at least 79 percent of the
students viewed at least part of the program; in contrast, only
nine percent of the control group viewed parts of the television
program. As a result, both parent-child communication and
knowledge about AIDS increased.This study demonstrates the
potential effectiveness of combining homework assignments and
mass media as a method of increasing short-term parent-child
communication about a sexual topic.
In conclusion, studies of programs to reach parents through
schools indicate that:
- It is possible to reach large numbers of parents through student
homework assignments
- Large proportions will complete these assignments
- Homework components can include at least five different
assignments and various and more complex activities, such as
role playing
- These assignments do increase parent-child communication, at
least in the short run
- Homework assignments may not change the students' sexual
attitudes or sexual behavior in the long run
References
- S. M. Blake, L. Simkin, R. Ledsky, C. Perkins, and J. M. Calabrese,
"Effects of a Parent-Child Communications Intervention on Young
Adolescents' Risk for Early Onset of Sexual Intercourse," Family
Planning Perspectives, 2001, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 52-61; D. Kirby,
R. P. Barth, N. Leland, and J.V. Fetro, "Reducing the Risk: Impact of
a New Curriculum on Sexual Risk-Taking," Family Planning
Perspectives, 1991, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 253-63.
- S. M. Blake, L. Simkin, R. Ledsky, C. Perkins, and J. M. Calabrese,
"Effects of a Parent-Child Communications Intervention on Young
Adolescents' Risk for Early Onset of Sexual Intercourse," Family
Planning Perspectives, 2001, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 52-61
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- N. L. R. Anderson, D. Koniak-Griffin, C. K. Keenan, G. Uman, B. R. Duggal, and C. Casey, "Evaluating the OUtcomes of Parent-Child Family Life Education," Scholarly Inquiry for Nursing Practice: An International Journal, 1999, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 211-34; D. Kirby, R. P. Barth, N. Leland, and J.V. Fetro, "Reducing the Risk: Impact of a New Curriculum on Sexual Risk-Taking," Family Planning Perspectives, 1991, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 253-63.
- D. Kirby, R. P. Barth, N. Leland, and J.V. Fetro, "Reducing the Risk: Impact of a New Curriculum on Sexual Risk-Taking," Family Planning Perspectives, 1991, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 253-63.
- Ibid.
- K.Weeks, S. R. Levy,A. K. Gordon, A. Handler, C. Perhats, and B. R.
Flay, "Does Parental Involvement Make a Difference? The Impact
of Parent Interactive Activities on Students in a School-Based
AIDS Prevention Program," AIDS Education and Prevention, 1997,
vol. 9, (Supplement A), pp. 90-106.
- I. Crawford, L. A. Jason, N. Riordan, J. Kaufman, D. Salina,
L. Sawalski, F. C. Ho, and E. Zolik, "A Multimedia-Based Approach
to Increasing Communication and the Level of AIDS Knowledge
within Families," Journal of Community Psychology, 1990, vol. 18,
pp. 361-73.
For more information, contact siecus@siecus.org.
copyright © 2003, SIECUS
Web Master: siecus@siecus.org
http://www.familiesaretalking.org
|
