International guidelines on sexual health education suggest that parents should be the primary educators in their children's sexuality education, considering that sexuality education is a lifelong process that begins in early childhood and continues into adulthood. The study aimed to investigate the relationships among parental self-efficacy,…

Autistic adults have similar levels of desire for sexual and romantic relationships as their non-autistic peers. However, autistic adults are less likely to be in relationships and have less dating experience. We compared sexual knowledge, experiences, and pragmatic language ability in a community sample of young adults with (n = 27, mean age =…

There is limited research on sexuality education for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The present study examined special education teachers' feelings of self-efficacy to teach sexuality education to students with IDD. Using a 36-item Attitudes and Beliefs Instrument and a 13-item Self Efficacy Survey, this study…

By means of an online survey, this study investigated factors predicting the intention to use sexually explicit material among 52 sex educators. The online survey was based on the theory of planned behaviour and measured attitudes towards sexually explicit material, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and the intention to use sexually…

Stigma is an important contributor to social isolation and has negative wellbeing and health impacts. People with intersex variations experience stigma based on multiple factors -- family-based silencing and stigma; lack of adequate puberty education normalising body diversity at school; and medically imposed stigma from 'corrective'…

China has a conservative sex culture and does not include contraception as part of its sex education curriculum. As a result, young people tend to search for sex information online. How college students seek contraception information, by what means, and the factors affecting their information seeking are poorly understood. To better understand…

Objective: We examine how sexual activity relates to sexual well-being within the context of sexual attitudes, sexual agency, and sexual desire. Participants/Methods: We surveyed 471 college women in 2012-2014 who had ever had sex. Results: Sexual agency and sexual desire consistently predicted well-being, regardless of recent sexual activity.…

Title IX prohibits sex-based harassment (SBH) in all federally funded educational activities, yet little is known about SBH in K-12 schools. We used the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) data (N = 96,440) to examine rates and school-, district-, and state-level predictors of SBH in K-12 schools. Results found the vast majority of schools had…

Evaluations of a large federally funded sexual risk avoidance education (SRAE) efforts in the USA have not been widely reported in the wake of funding cuts. The purpose of this study is to report results from a broad set of programmes to demonstrate the breadth of field effectiveness of these programmes. Twenty-seven separate community-based SRAE…

Young adults are disproportionately affected by negative sexual health outcomes, such as sexually transmitted infections. One strategy for reducing such negative outcomes involves the use of comprehensive sexual health education. As comprehensive sexual health education programmes are adopted, there is a need to evaluate the messaging approaches…

This study explores how positive media messages about sex can lead to better sexual health among young adults (college students at a large university, N = 228) by de-emphasizing sensation seeking, condom embarrassment, and stigma. Employing social learning theory and normative influence frameworks, the research found that college-age women had…

Data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (SRI International, 2002) were analyzed to identify variables that predicted whether individuals with intellectual disability (ID) received sex education in public schools across the United States. Results suggested that individuals receiving special education services without ID were only…

The research reported in this paper investigates why teachers in regional primary schools in the Ballarat region of Victoria, Australia, are choosing to outsource the teaching of sexuality education. A survey was conducted of 29 Year 5 and Year 6 teachers from local primary schools. The teachers provided information about: their confidence in…

This study examined the influence of family structure on the outcomes of a sex education program in Miami, Florida. Using an experimental design, data collection occurred at pretest, 3-month, and 6-month follow-up with a sample of teenagers from high schools with a large majority of minority youth, assigned into treatment (n = 549) and control (n…

Sexually active young adults are at an increased risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. Sexual behaviours such as inconsistent condom use, multiple partners and casual sex are known risk factors for negative sexual health outcomes. Sexually active higher education students are classified as…