Teen Mags and Soap Operas to Teach about Sex

This brief article highlights communication trends in sexual education in the United Kingdom by referencing The MediaRelate project, headed by David Buckingham and Sara Bragg at the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media at the Institute of Education. (Click here for a summary of MediaRelate).

According to the article, youth interviewed as part of MediaRelate's research were "'generally very critical' of sex education lessons in school, but were also embarrassed to discuss such issues with their parents...'They preferred media such as teenage magazines and soap operas on the grounds that they were often more informative, less embarrassing to use and more attuned to their needs and concerns'." Based on these findings, organisers developed pilot courses that are described in the article (excerpted below).

Excerpts from the article follow:

"Teachers wrestling unsuccessfully with a banana and a condom in front of a group of embarrassed pupils are being replaced in some schools by teen magazines and television dramas such as Footballers' Wives in a bid to demystify sex and relationships.

Youngsters between 12 and 15 are studying titles including Bliss, Sugar and Mizz - which have in the past been criticised for their overtly sexual content - as part of a course which has been trialled in several schools and will be available to teachers next spring....

But earlier this year the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said teen magazines should carry age restrictions on their front covers, warning that they 'glamorise promiscuity'....

A report two years ago by the schools watchdog, Ofsted, confirmed the quality of sex and relationship education, which all secondary schools must provide, to be highly patchy. It found that one in 10 schools had poor policies on the issue and that teaching was often weak where non-specialist teachers were obliged to teach the subject.

The report highlighted the media, and particularly teen magazines, as an 'increasingly important' source of information for pupils. It urged schools, which are free to choose their own sex education resources but must consult parents, to be 'more aware of the role of these media'....

Co-author Dr Bragg said the [MediaRelate] course aimed to develop media literacy as much as sex education. The project differed from existing sex education courses used in schools because it sought to use real media to which pupils were regularly exposed rather than specially devised materials, she said.

She acknowledged concern over teen magazines, but said: 'This is partly about allowing young people to be involved in that debate. When you talk to young people they are often very negative about these magazines and say they are too full of sex - they often sound quite like parents'...."

Liberating sex education evolves*

• 1950s - Teachers were allowed to talk about the "activities" of frogs and rabbits but there was no mention of human sexual behaviour.
• 1960s - While the arrival of the Pill heralded the sexual revolution, most teenagers were left in the dark. In some "progressive" schools sex was explained with the help of dead rats and frogs which had their reproductive organs removed.
• 1970s - Sex was included in health education lessons and for the first time, diagrams and photographs - some of which omitted portions of the female anatomy - appeared in classrooms.
• 1980s - The emergence of AIDS and HIV prioritised sex education for the first time. UK's Sex Education Forum was set up and each school was expected to have its own sex education policy.
• 1990s - Reproduction was discussed in primary school science lessons; sex education was taught in secondary schools. Teachers were given support and guidance when it came to answering pupils' questions.

* Editor's note: This information was submitted by Matthew Taylor as a supplement to Lucy Ward's article. To view this information, click here to access Taylor's archived posting to the Young People's Media Network (YPMN).