The purpose of this study was to assess community attitudes toward school-based abstinence-plus sexuality education. A dual sampling approach of landlines and cell phones resulted in 988 adults from two counties completing "The South Carolina Survey of Public Opinion on Pregnancy Prevention." Among respondents, 87.1% supported…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the HPV vaccination for boys and girls starting at age 11, yet adoption rates are low. We use eight focus groups to explore the decision making process, experiences, and social influences, including media and sex education classes, shaping attitudes of male and female college…

Peer education programs are a popular approach to preventing HIV infection among adolescents. While the programs show promise for effectively preventing HIV among the peers who are provided education, little evaluation research has been conducted to determine if the peer educators themselves experience knowledge, attitude, and behavior changes. A…

Dialogue journaling is a technique that is useful for enhancing the goals of sexual health promotion and HIV/STI prevention programs with 14-to 17-year-old at-risk youth. Included is a detailed lesson plan on how to implement dialogue journaling in this context, a discussion of advantages and concerns about using them, and future implications for…

The present study replicated research conducted decades earlier (Goldman & Goldman, 1982a; Koch, 197480) on what children in the United States know about conception and birth compared to those in other countries. Specifically, response drawings by 48 six-year-old boys and girls from England, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States were…

Little is known about younger adults' attitudes towards age-related sexual changes and behaviors. Research using the Aging Sexuality Knowledge and Attitudes Scale (ASKAS) (White, 1982) has been effective in determining knowledge and attitudes among the staff of long-term care facilities, nurses, undergraduate nursing students, health care…

Our study explored the eligibility and willingness of students to participate in a university-wide catch-up Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program. A total of 1804 electronic surveys (82% response) assessing demographics, HPV knowledge, eligibility, and willingness were gathered. HPV knowledge was moderate, with just over a quarter (26%)…

This classroom exercise is designed to facilitate insight and understanding of the relationships between sexual attitudes and sexual experiences among college students. First, students complete a 65-item survey on which they indicate their moderate to traditional sexual attitudes and their corresponding sexual experiences. Next, correlations,…

This article provides a summary of selected research conducted on the sexuality, as well as sexual knowledge and behaviors of individuals with autism over the past 20 years. The discussion section reviews the research according to the following recurrent themes: the importance of sexuality in the lives of individuals with autism, the discourse of…

Adolescents in the United States continue to face sexual health issues. While community-based organizations (CBOs) have a long history of addressing the sexual health needs of those they serve, little attention has been given to CBOs focused on adolescent populations and the role youth development professionals (YDPs) might play in the advancement…

Disparities in the rates of unintended pregnancy have increased for low-income African American women as compared to other groups due, in part, to declining contraception use. Women obtain family planning information from diverse sources, which may ultimately influence contraceptive decision making. For this qualitative study, we conducted…

Twenty parents attending an urban community college were interviewed about how they respond to common questions children ask about sexuality. Parental responses to children's questions about sexuality were considered in relation to the authoritative and authoritarian patterns of communication identified by Baumrind (1967). The majority of parents…

The gains in knowledge and changes of attitudes of students in undergraduate sexuality courses in two different academic disciplines were compared to those of their peers without college sexuality education in a variety of other psychology courses. All students had similar scores on tests of sexual anatomy, behavior, and health at the start of the…

In recent years, leading scholars in the field of sexology have been calling for more professionals who are primarily sexologists rather than professionals in other fields who specialize in sexuality. Such professionals require specialized training that meets their specific needs. The Sexuality Attitude Reassessment (SAR) has been established as a…

This exploratory study measured the sexuality education and HIV knowledge, attitudes, and risk behaviors of young adults (n = 410), ages 18-21, who recently graduated from public high schools in a midwestern state. Based on the participants' responses to specific questions, students were placed into one of three groups: students who received no…