Welfare, Liberty, and Security for All? U.S. Sex Education Policy and the 1996 Title V Section 510 of the Social Security Act.
When adolescents delay (meaning they wait until after middle school) engaging in sexual intercourse, they use condoms at higher rates and have fewer sexual partners than those who have sex earlier, thus resulting in a lower risk for unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. The 1996 Section 510 of Title V of the Social Security Act (often referred to as A-H) is a policy that promotes abstinence-only-until-marriage education (AOE) within public schools. Using Stone's (2012) policy analysis framework, this article explores how A-H limits welfare, liberty, and security among adolescents due to the poor empirical outcomes of AOE policy. We recommend incorporating theory-informed comprehensive sex education in addition to theory-informed abstinence education that utilizes Fishbein and Ajzen's (2010) reasoned action model within schools in order to begin to address adolescent welfare, liberty, and security.
New York University Silver School of Social Work, 79 Washington Square East, New York, NY, 10003, USA. justinlerner@nyu.edu.
Justin E
0000-0002-0590-1612
JE
Lerner
New York University Silver School of Social Work, 1 Washington Square North, New York, NY, 10003, USA.
Robert L
RL
Hawkins
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005610:Freedom; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D060728:Reproductive Health; D012736:Sex Education; D012943:Social Security; D012946:Social Welfare; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult
Reasoned action model; Sex education; Title V Section 510 of the Social Security Act