The online open access journal, BMC Public Health, published a report, shows that the local high school catchment area and socio-economic situation have a more powerful influence on reported sexual experience among fifthteen and sixteen year olds than classroom discipline or the quality of relationships within schools.
This is the first study to attempt to look beyond the formal sex education assess and curriculum whether the way in which schools are run. In terms of their social relationships and organisation, can affect levels of sexual activity amongst schoolgirls and schoolboys. A team of researchers from sityes called and Edinburgh and Glasgow analysed data on nearly 5k pupils from twentyfour different Scottish Schools. They found that overall thirthythree percents of boys and forthytwo percents of girls reported experience of sexual intercourse, but the rates between schools ranged widely, from twentythree percents to sixtyone percents.
However, the study found that how well a school is run appeared to have little influence at all on sexual behaviour. Once the researchers had accounted for all the known predictors of sexual activity (individual socio-economic factors, the age of pupils, parental monitoring, their levels of personal spending money or the proportion of their friends perceived to be having sex) - the variance between schools dropped sharply. Relationships between teachers and pupils, appearance, discipline and the school’s layout - the characteristics of a school, showed only a very weak impact on the rates of sexual experience.
Study lead author Dr Marion Henderson from the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow said that: “Schools have the potential to influence their pupils behaviour through the school’s social organisation and culture, as well as through the formal curriculum. The idea of Health Promoting Schools - whereby schools move beyond their formal health education curricula to examine how their policies and practices throughout the school affect the health and well-being of pupils - is now encouraged by government.”
The results revealed that school level socio-economic factors remain very influential even after individual pupils’ socio-economic status is taken into account. “School-level socio-economic factors, such as levels of deprivation, do have a big influence. This suggests that an individual who is deprived but attending a school with an affluent catchment area may be discouraged from sexual activity, whilst an affluent individual attending a school with a deprived catchment area may be encouraged towards earlier sexual intercourse”, said Dr. Henderson.
“It would be over-simplifying to interpret these results as suggesting that sex education isn’t valuable. The study was looking at effects of school beyond the sex education curricula. Sex education is intended to encourage young people to be responsible for their own sexual health and to make informed choices. What the results tell us is that to make a further big impact on early sexual activity and pregnancy the government will need to tackle deprivation and neighbourhoods”, said Dr Henderson, commenting on the value of sex education in schools.
1. BMC Public Health is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of epidemiology and public health medicine. BMC Public Health (ISSN 1471-2458) is indexed/covered/tracked by Google Scholar, CAS, EMBASE, PubMed, Scopus, Thomson Scientific (ISI) and MEDLINE.
1. The Medical Research Council is dedicated to improving human health through excellent science. It invests on behalf of the UK taxpayer. Its work ranges from molecular level science to public health research, carried out in universities, hospitals and a network of its own units and institutes. The MRC liaises with the Health Departments, the National Health Service and industry to take account of the public’s needs. The results have led to some of the most significant discoveries in medical science and benefited the health and wealth of millions of people in the UK and around the world.
3. What explains between-school differences in rates of sexual experience? Isabella Butcher, Daniel Wight, Marion Henderson, Lisa Williamson and Gillian Raab BMC Public Health (in press) http://blog.PHARMACYDISCOUNTMEDS.COM/
All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central’s open access policy.
4. The MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit was created in 1998 to promote human health via the study of social and environmental influences on health. (http://blog.HEALTH4TODAY.COM/) The Unit’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme aims to understand better the key social factors that shape sexual risk behaviour, and to develop and evaluate appropriate programmes to improve sexual health.
5. BioMed Central (http://blog.ONLINEPHARMACYSCOUT.COM/) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing immediate access without charge to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science. (Buy Kamagra Online)
