PBS NewsHour recently highlighted an innovative sexuality education program in Dutch elementary schools that goes beyond risk prevention often highlighted in the U.S. Twenty-two U.S. states require sex education to be taught in schools.  However, the components of sexuality education vary, and often the type of education promoted in the U.S. emphasizes heterosexual relationships within marriage. In fact, only nine states require a positive discussion of sexual orientation. Only eight states require sex ed to be culturally appropriate, and unbiased against race, gender, and ethnicity.

Tanya McNeill analyzes state and federal policies on sexuality education. She finds that a specific kind of monogamous, marital, middle class, and generally white heterosexuality is promoted in U.S. school policies and curricula. Sex is defined as heterosexual penetrative intercourse, and the importance of marriage for sexual interaction is emphasized. Heterosexual families are deemed “stable” and “functional,” and same sex experiences are rarely mentioned.

Virginia’s guidelines, which McNeill analyzes closely, also emphasize the naturalness of gender roles, like women caring for children.They imply that “families require men and women to marry and raise children together, sharing gender segregated tasks.”  Virginia offers no discussion of same sex two-parent families or single parent households. McNeill also draws attention to the ways in which abstinence-only education is classed and racialized, arguing it serves to regulate poor women’s sexuality. She points to Lorena Garcia’s classroom ethnography which suggests that some teachers perceive Latina students to be constantly at risk of pregnancy because of a “Latino culture.”

Clearly sexuality education policies do more than just risk prevention. They further reproduce hierarchies based on sexual orientation, gender, race, and class.

Read the full article here:

McNeill, Tanya. 2013. “Sex Education and the Promotion of Heteronormativity.” Sexualities 16(7): 826-846.

Allison Nobles is a graduate student in Sociology at the University of Minnesota who studies gender, sexuality, and violence.  Follow me on Twitter @Allison_Nobles.