Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Abstinence education and statistics
Whether it might have worked in someone's case or not, this is the where the statistical evidence comes down on pledges and abstinence education. Has anyone discovered a bias in this research?
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4 comments:
The link is just this ladies spin on the research. The actual research and findings she mentions in the article don’t support her claim at all.
I mean the title says this: "Ellen Goodman: Abstinence-only education has been dismal failure"
But then when describe the actual study she says:
"She compared teens who took a pledge of abstinence with teens of similar backgrounds and beliefs who didn’t. She found absolutely no difference in their sexual behavior, or the age at which they began having sex, or the number of their partners."
So obviously a few questions immediately present themselves:
1) What does she mean by "similar backgrounds and beliefs"??
But also more importantly:
2) The author of this article is equating "abstinence only education" with "a pledge of abstinence."
Articles like this are worthless you need to see the study and evaluate the methodology if you want real answers.
I remember reading a study that said whether someone was believed in God did not effect cause any appreciable effect on teen sex but if someone was “strongly religious” it did have an effect. (Or something along those lines.) But again I don’t have the study.
Here is a criticism of the study from the abstinence association:
http://www.abstinenceassociation.org/newsroom/pr_122908_virginity_pledge_study_inaccurate.html
The study was of religious teens only. So when the study concludes that the abstinence pledge does not change teen sexuality, it really means that it does not affect the sexuality of those teens already living a religious life. This is hardly surprising. The study confirms that religious teens have healthier sexual practices and engage in "less risky" sexual practices, such as having fewer sexual partners and putting sexual activity off more than non-religious teens.
If the question is, do teens who take the abstinence pledge engage in less risky sexual practices than all teens as a whole then the answer is yes. But you get the same benefit by raising your kids in religious homes whether or not they take the pledge.
The issue is mixed, at best:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1949026
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/sexual-health/birth-control/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100183137&page=1
http://www.campusreportonline.net/main/articles.php?id=1349
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