ATTITTUDE OF PARENTS TOWARDS SEX EDUCATION IN SCHOOL

 A STUDY ON ATTITUDE OF PARENTS TOWARDS SEX EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS OF KERALA

Nimisha NK

BEd Natural science

Semester IV

St. Joseph College of Teacher Education for Women, Ernakulam

nimishanitha@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Sex education is high quality teaching and learning about a broad variety of topics related to sex and sexuality.  High school students and adolescents have a right to obtain information on various aspect of sex education at the right time as sex education is more than just knowing about sexual intercourse. This study is about the attittude  of parents toward sex education in schools of Kerala  A descriptive cross sectional study was done using google form.  The results of this study showed that, parents have positive attitude towards sex education in schools. Education of parents is not influencing their attittude towards sex education. factors such as society, family, culture, ethnicity played big role in determining the attitude of the parents

KEYWORDS  : Sex eduction, Attitude, Parents

1. INTRODUCTION

Sex education is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, age of consent, reproductive health, reproductive rights, sexual health, safe sex and birth control. Sex education, including its spiritual aspects, should be a part of both health and moral education from kindergarten through grade twelve, ideally carried out harmoniously by parents and teachers.

But a good school-based sex education curriculum should be much more than that, encompassing multiple issues related to human growth and development, experts say. In addition to basic facts about puberty, sex and contraception, lessons can cover topics like healthy relationships, sexual violence prevention, body image, sexual orientation and gender identity. Everyone deserves quality sex education but only a few teenagers get the same. Because of socio-cultural diversity & other political issues in India, it’s very much difficult to impart sex education in our education system. If someone tries to teach about it, people take it in an undesirable way because of diversities in culture & thoughts. But soon the things will change and there will be some way to teach such things healthily.

Human sexual behavior in India has been influenced by different attitudes and opinions over time. India pioneered the use and application of sex education through art and literature although it has not been formally applied by the government in the academic curriculum of a majority of educational institutions and has also been objected by the parents of teenagers in the past. Sex education may either be imparted informally through books,magazines, media and website or formally through sex education classes in schools and educational institution. Improper knowledge on sex education may lead emotional disturbance.

1.2 NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE

Sex education at school is given to increase the boys and girls knowledge and the importance of sex-related issues and health. It is also considered as been important for societies and individuals to be well-informed about sexual practices, sexual abuse on children and also sexually transmitted diseases. Most of the school offer no sex education since it remains to be highly controversial issue especially with respect to the right age at which the children should receive such kind of information and also the method in which such information is passed to them. Previous studies result a law or a moderate attitude towards sex education. This kind of attitude has prevailed of decades in the Indian society. Parents find unnecessary for their children to learn or no more about sexual intercourse and reproduction system. It is still consider to be a taboo from the society point of view

1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The study can be entitled as “A STUDY ON ATTITUDE ON PARENTS TOWARDS SEX EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS OF KERALA”

1.4 OBJECTIVES

1.      To study on attitude on parents towards sex education

2.      To compare the attitude of parents at primary, high school and higher secondary level

3.      To find out the relationship between parental education and their attitude

2. METHODOLOGY

Googleform was used for data collection. Parental attitude scale was constructed for the work. The attitude scale measure attitude of parents towards sex education. A large no of statements which are expressing the attitude of parents towards sex education to adolescents have been collected separately. The scale consists of 18 items which can be measure on five point scale i.e., strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree. A total number of 40 samples have been selected for the purpose of this study. After the statements have been collected, they are edited by keeping in view different dimensions like social aspect, physical aspect, physiological aspect, STDs and sex roles of sex education. The study convers a period of 28/02/2021 and the relevant information was obtained.

3. ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Data collected was analysed and was presented as tables and graphs.

Table 1 : Attitude about “scientific knowledge towards sex issues can be obtained through sex education”

OPTIONS	PERCENTAGE	COUNT
Strongly agree	5.00	2
Agree	17.50	7
Neutral	10.00	4
Disagree	30.00	12
Strongly disagree	37.50	15

Figure1: figure showing that attitude about scientific knowledge and sex education

The above table shows 37.5% parents are strongly agree that scientific education of sex related issues are only get through sex education.45% are just agree the statement .5% disagree the statement. No one are strongly disagree the  statement

Table 2: sex education and sex related crimes

OPTIONS	PERCENTAGE	COUNT
Strongly agree	64.10	25
Agree	23.08	9
Neutral	5.13	2
Disagree	7.69	3
Strongly disagree	0.00	0

 

Fig 2: figure showing that attitude towards sex education and sex exploitation and crimes.

64.10% parents are strongly agree that sex education helps in protecting the adolescent from sexual exploitation and sex related crimes. 21.08 % are agree the statement. 5.13%have neutral opinion.7.69% parents have strongly disagree attitude.

 

Table 3: Sex education at high school and higher secondary

OPTIONS	PERCENTAGE	COUNT
Strongly agree	42.50	17
Agree	50.00	20
Neutral	5.00	2
Disagree	2.50	1
Strongly disagree	0.00	0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3 : figure showing that attitude towards sex education at high school  and higher secondary

The above table shows that 42.50 % parents strongly agree that sex education should be introduced as a separate subject at secondary and higher secondary levels. 50 % agree the statement. 5% have neutral attitude.2.50 % are disagree the statement.

Table 4: opposite genders physical and mental changes

OPTIONS	PERCENTAGE	COUNT
Strongly agree	74.36	29
Agree	23.08	9
Neutral	0.00	0
Disagree	2.56	1
Strongly disagree	0.00	0

Figure 4: figure shows that attitude towards children should have sufficient knowledge of the opposite genders difficulties and condition ( physical and mental)

The above table show that 74.36% parents are strongly agree that girls and boys should have sufficient knowledge of the opposite genders condition and difficulties ( menstration,mental changes,physical changes). 23.08% parents have agree attitude.2.56 % parents are disagree the statement.

Table 5:  Parental attitude towards sex education

OPTIONS	PERCENTAGE	COUNT
Strongly agree	77.50	2
Agree	15.00	7
Neutral	10.00	4
Disagree	30.00	12
Strongly disagree	37.50	15

Figure 5: figure shows that attitude of parents towards sex education

The above table shows that 77.50% parents have strongly agree attitude towards sex education.15%have agree attitude. 7.50 %have neutral attitude towards sex education

Table 6: Education wise attitude of parents

OPTION	STRONGLY AGREE	AGREE	NEUTRAL	DISAGREE	STRONGLY DISAGREE
SSLC	2	0	1	0	0
Pre degree	2	3	1	0	0
Degree	17	3	1	0	0
Other	10	0	0	0	0
Total	31	6	3	0	0

 

Figure 6: figure shows that education wise list of respondents

This shows that parents who have same qualification have different attitude towards sex education. Every qualified parents have strongly agree attitude. Pre degree, degree and other parents also have neutral attitude towards sex education

3.1. MAJOR FINDINGS

·         Parents have become more open to issue like sex Education and its various aspects

·         Education of parents is not influencing their attitude towards sex education

·         Factors such as socially, family ,culture ,ethnicity, played big role in determining the attitude of the parents

·         Right time for sex education is high school and higher secondary level

·         Sex education should be taught in school to help young people make healthy decisions regarding sex throughout their lives

4. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY

·         The study helps in ,to search the scope for handling sex education through classroom teaching and school based activities

·         Children should receive guidance and encouragement from responsible government officials, preferably through formal adult education programme

·         Primary responsibility lives with school system.

·         The educational institution are better equipped to guide and direct attitude formation ,installing skills and competencies than other institution in adolescent about sex education

·         There is need of carefully selected books on the subject should be made available to the students in the library

5. CONCLUSION

Parents and teachers have to play the vital role in the life of adolescents .generally young adolescents use different strategies to satisfy their curiosities and queries about sex. Today parents have great responsibility in helping child to achieve these behaviour and value changes if adults round them do not provide proper information about sex, adolescents may either draw the wrong conclusions based upon inaccurate knowledge or they will make up their own explanations

            The results of the present study show that the parents of today’s teenagers have high attitude towards sex education with no significant gender variation. More studies could be done in this area to support the findings of the present study. Result of this study can help improve the existing and create new programms for sex education in schools where parents should be the contributors .Thus it is clear that imparting sex education to children and adolescent is a great importance

REFERENCES

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