I was re-reading an article today about barriers teachers perceive to teaching sexuality education, as we’re working on writing some info sheets and a paper about our YPAR project, and it got me thinking. The article is Barriers to providing the sexuality education that teachers believe students need which was published in the Journal of School Health in 2013 by fellow Minnesotans Eisenberg, Madsen, Oliphant, and Sieving. While our research didn’t survey teachers, I think this research provides great context for the sex ed experiences of the young people in our sample.

A lot of what the authors found resonated with my experiences both teaching sex ed and working with teachers to implement programming, especially the role of structural barriers. The study found that 48% of participants said “lack of time” was a barrier to providing the sex ed they want to provide. I think there are lots of teachers that I’ve worked with that support sex ed and want young people to get the information they need, but find it challenging to cover that content because of all of the other content they need to provide or their schedule. Teachers’ jobs are complex and often challenging, I get that and try to balance being considerate with my own responsibilities, grant requirements, and general focus on ensuring young people get the information they need. It also didn’t surprise me that concerns about others’ responses to content was a barrier.

A few findings really got me thinking. The study found that the metro teachers were more likely to report district policy as a barrier than the non-metro teachers. It also found that the metro teachers were less likely to teach about puberty and teen parenting than the non-metro teachers. I think there are sometimes assumptions people make about folks and schools outside the metro, that they are all more conservative, politically and program-wise. That could be the case, right, it may be that the non-metro teachers are more in line with their district policies. Maybe more conservative people are working in conservative districts. Or maybe the metro districts are larger, with more teachers, and so many there is a wide range of values and attitudes among those teachers. I’m not sure (obviously), but it is interesting to think about. You’d think I’d maybe have an insight being from outside the metro, but I went to Catholic school so I don’t really know what happened in the public schools. I’m not sure why puberty and teen parenting was less likely to be covered…. the authors don’t really explain potential reasons for that and I feel like I need to think about it more.

Another finding that I’m mulling over was that “concerns about others’ responses” was associated with lower odds of covering sexual violence content. Not that that is surprising to me, it can be uncomfortable talking about sexual violence, especially if you’ve experienced it, and you have to be educated about and comfortable with your role as a mandated reporter. Something we found in our YPAR project was that most of our survey participants did not report having sexual violence covered, didn’t learn about consent in school, and did not have their teacher provide sexual violence advocacy and counseling resources. The finding in the article stood out to me because it seems like a clear training we could provide or connect teachers to. It’s certainly something that we talk about often at work.

I often find myself feeling both informed about sex ed and how it happens in our state, and also always hungry to learn more about it, or think more deeply about it. Which is why I was so excited about the opportunity to facilitate our YPAR project! The research from this article is valuable in constructing the picture of sex ed in Minnesota, which is needed to see what gaps exists, why, and how we can improve.