Sex education in the inner city. Learning and retention
M. D. Benson, C. Perlman and J. J. Sciarra
The Discovery program, initiated in 1982, includes two separate one-hour
presentations on sex education. It is presented by medical student
volunteers to children in the seventh and eighth grades of inner-city
public schools. A study including 1,133 youngsters demonstrated a 32%
improvement in scores with excellent retention. A control group of 126
students tested three times who did not hear the program demonstrated no
learning from the test alone. Socioeconomic status, grade, and sex all
influenced the level of knowledge prior to instruction but did not affect
the degree of learning. Searches of the medical and educational literature
reveal that this appears to be the most thoroughly investigated sex
education course in the United States for any grade level. In view of its
low cost and ease of implementation, the program could well serve as a
model for junior high school sex education curricula in other school
systems.
