Attitudes towards Sex Education across Educational Levels: Evidence from Indian Adolescents

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21337979

Aarti Nagpal (School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Chanakya University, Bengaluru, Karnataka)

The Indian society and culture have seen an enduring debate on imparting sexual health education to students in schools and colleges. It is by far seen as a critical aspect for a healthy development of a human being. Adolescence is a period marked by significant changes, both physiologically and psychologically, making it an important period for age-appropriate information on reproductive and sexual health. The current study assessed whether there are differences in attitudes toward Sex education among adolescents of different educational attainment. To do this, 120 adolescents were recruited through a snowball sampling technique using a between-groups experimental design. Each subgroup included equal numbers of adolescents from high school, intermediate, and undergraduate education. Data was collected from study participants using the Attitude Towards Sexual Education scale (Mishra, 2008). The questionnaire was used as a tool to gain information about the participants’ perceptions and attitudes toward sexual health education. Parametric statistical methods were used to analyse the data (for example, One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s HSD, Point biserial correlation and Simple linear regression). The analysis of the data reveals significant differences in attitude towards sex across the three educational groups and a significant positive correlation between the variables within the study. The results suggest a pressing need for providing evidence-based sex education as part of the curriculum at each of the levels of formal education, and that the evidence supports policies promoting health-enhancing sexual behaviour among adolescents in India is empirical.