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Title: The Impact of Sex Education on Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Premarital Pregnancy Among American Teenagers
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Marsiglio, William
Mott, Frank L.
The Impact of Sex Education on Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Premarital Pregnancy Among American Teenagers
Family Planning Perspectives 18,4 (July-August 1986): 151-154+157-162.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2135324
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Alan Guttmacher Institute
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Behavior; Childbearing; Contraception; Sexual Activity; Sexual Behavior; Sexual Experiences/Virginity

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study examined data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth, a U.S. panel survey of 6,288 women and 6,398 men who have been interviewed each year since 1979 when they were 14-22 years old. The principal objectives of this research were to document the proportion of a recent cohort of teenagers who had taken a sex education course and the extent to which they were exposed to five types of course instruction, and to examine systematically the relationship between exposure to a sex education course and sex-related behaviors of young women. The findings indicated that the majority of young people (66 percent of women and 79 percent of men) had become sexually active by age 19. A notable finding was that a sizeable proportion of youth had sexual intercourse for the first time without having taken a sex education course. Among those teens who became sexually active by age 19, only 53 percent of women and 35 percent of men had taken a sex education course before they first had intercourse. Analyses revealed, after controlling for a series of sociodemographic factors, that 15- to 16-year-old girls who were virgins and who had taken a sex education course were slightly more likely to initiate sexual activity within the year after their course than those who had not taken a course; no relationship was found between course taking and sexual activity for 17- and 18-year-old women. Young women who had previously taken a sex education course were significantly more likely to use effective contraceptives than were teenagers who had never had a course. However, course taking did not affect young women's probability of experiencing a nonmarital pregnancy before age 20 in a multivariate context.
Bibliography Citation
Marsiglio, William and Frank L. Mott. "The Impact of Sex Education on Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Premarital Pregnancy Among American Teenagers." Family Planning Perspectives 18,4 (July-August 1986): 151-154+157-162.