It recognizes explicitly that local policy makers must create education programs responsive to local cultural norms and values in this sensitive area. It also makes clear that evidence supports the hypotheses that sex education programs have not only reduced the rate of HIV infection, but also tend to result in students delaying the beginning of sexual activity and recognizing more fully the responsibilities invoked by sexual activity.
From the point of view of this blog, focusing on knowledge for development, this report:
- summarizes knowledge from a wide variety of sources to make it more available to educational policy makers.
- supports the importance of dissemination of age-appropriate, culturally-appropriate information to children of a kind that may be life saving.
It seems prototypical of the work that should be done by international agencies, making information available and leaving decisions to legitimate authorities.
What occasioned this posting however is the difference in treatment of this report in the Twitter universe. I have read scores of tweets about the report in recent days. Those in English primarily share a very conservative viewpoint, expressing anger that there would be guidelines suggesting that schools provide sex education; some are clearly responsive to a story on Fox news criticizing the study. (My own tweets, in English, have been the exception, suggesting that people read the report itself rather than judging it based on short, sensationalizing news reports or blog postings.)
The tweets in Spanish and Portugese generally are neutral in tone, simply sharing the news that the publication is available and providing a link to download it.
I don't know what conclusion to draw from the fact. But I much prefer the Latin language postings.
1 comment:
America is rich, and families and society may better protect children. In poor countries huge numbers of kids are sold into prostitution. They are exploited sexually. Rape can be a weapon of war and school a place of sexual predation. Kids in poor countries may need sex education more than kids in rich countries.
They may also need it earlier. There are still more than 70 million kids of primary school age in the world who do not go to school. If you are going to use schools to teach these kids what they most need to know, you better do it early. This is especially true for girls in many countries.
So in judging UNESCO's effort to inform educational policy makers, one should not assume that most of those policy makers are facing problems like those of policy makers in the United States.
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