Week5 Sociology Final 6.5.23
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Philosophy
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Apr 3, 2024
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Should Sexual Education Be Taught in Public School?
Grace Carrig
University of Arizona Global Campus
PHI103 Informal Logic
Instructor Mary Gwin May 22, 2023
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Introduction:
Do you remember the age you were when you had “the talk” with a parent or trusted adult? Do you also remember how uncomfortable it was? Well, with sexual education being taught in public schools it might not be as uncomfortable to talk about with one another. Teaching sexual education in public schools can be a controversial topic and studies have been done on both sides of the argument. The center of this paper will be to show reliable information on both sides of the question and evaluate the value of each. As stated in With Good Reason: A Guide to Critical Thinking
(2015), “In logic an argument is a set of claims in which some, called the premises, serve as a support for another claim, called the conclusion. The conclusion is the argument’s main claim” (Section 2.1, para 3). I will present the questions and evaluate the arguments utilized by each side and conclude with a discussion on the value of different sources in terms of the degree of support that they provide to the argument. Argument Presentation 1: Sexual Education Should Be Taught in Public School There have been multiple research studies on whether sexual education should be taught in public schools by Harvard University, USC, and Montclair State University. Most of the studies found within these scholarly articles are for sexual education being taught in public schools. There is a study done at Montclair State University that has analyzed 30 years of published research on school-based records and the various outcomes. It was mentioned by Lieberman (2020), “
This landmark study establishes once and for all that quality sex education that begins early, is developmentally appropriate and builds sequentially through middle and high school can improve young people’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. While many people think of sex education only in terms of pregnancy and STD prevention, these
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findings speak to the broader impact of quality sex education” (Para. 3). The argument presented can be represented in standard form as follows:
Premise 1: Sexual education being taught in public schools creates a safer environment.
Premise 2: Sexual education being taught in public schools creates healthier outcomes.
Premise 3: Sexual education being taught in public schools improves self-protective skills. Premise 4: Sexual education being taught in public schools increases disclosure of abuse.
Premise 5: Sexual education being taught in public schools improves parent-child communication. Conclusion: Therefore, sexual education being taught in public school Evaluation of Argument 1: The premises presented seem to adequately support the idea that sexual education taught in public schools gives kids the space to communicate and learn tools and skills that are most effective when developed appropriately. Sexual education has been compared to learning math, as it is more effective when you build an early foundation. There are many positive outcomes provided by the research, although there are limitations. Although this article is scholarly due to the fact of it being written by two public health professors at Montclair State University, there are no examples of the opposing side of why sexual education should not be taught in public schools. There are no specific time frames of when the research being reviewed was done, as well as what regions it was done in. The professor’s article states that the professors analyzed 30 years of published research done on school-based programs and their outcomes (Lieberman and Goldfarb, 2020). Argument Presentation 2: Sexual Education Should Not Be Taught in Public School
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On the other side of the argument there are concerns about sexual education being taught in public schools, and if it is even a schoolteacher’s job to do so. There was a scientific research study done by a faculty member of Social Science at the Mahatma Gandhi University, Rwanda. The research shows the pros and cons of sexual education being taught in public schools, and this section will be focusing on the cons. It was mentioned by Mandigo (2020), “Sex education taught in one school is not the same as that taught in the other” (pg.44 para 2). That being said
, sexual education is not being taught at the same level across the United States or even in different school districts and should be left up to the parents on how to approach it appropriately due to knowing their own child. The argument presented can be condensed as the following:
Premise 1: Sexual education being taught in public schools is too brief and interlude for students to get the full spectrum on how serious the matter is.
Premise 2: Sexual education being taught in public schools goes against the parent/guardians’ religious and moral beliefs. Premise 3: Teachers that are appointed to teach sexual education are not trained properly in how to approach the situation in a serious manner. Premise 4: Sexual education being taught in public schools pollutes children’s minds and enhances their curiosity, leading to wanted or unwanted sexual advances. Conclusion: Therefore, sexual education should not be taught in public schools, but rather by the parents/ guardians. Evaluation of Arguments in Scholarly and Non-Scholarly Sources:
Both scholarly sources provided supply a good amount of evidence for their conclusions by analyzing the data of published records and from the CDC. There are non-scholarly sources that cover the topic of sexual education, but they are more towards personal biases and emotions
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on the topic rather than acknowledging the research done. However, just because there is more information in scholarly sources, does not mean there are not instances when they can contradict each other. It is more surprising to find scholarly sources contradicting each other. Especially when the sources have cited other sources, there are times when the writer has found research more biased towards the point that is being proven. Thus, while non-academic sources are political and non-objective, drawing from whatever sources, credible or not, support their point of view, scholarly sources can also interpret data in ways that are far from neutral.
Conclusion: Examining the thinking on both sides of the question has been illuminating. Though there
is still debate about sexual education being taught in public schools, studying the reasoning from high quality sources provides perspective on the type of evidence that is being used on each side,
allowing one to assess which evidence is more reliable and provides more support for its conclusion. In the future, I will prefer scholarly sources over popular ones and will evaluate many scholarly outcomes to gain a better understanding of the issue.
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References
Foster, C., Hardy, J.,& Zúñiga
y
Postigo G.(2015). With Good Reason: A Guide to Critical
Thinking.
Bridgepoint Education, Inc
. PHI 103: With Good Reason: A Guide to Critical Thinking - Cover and Front Matter (uagc.edu)
Goldfarb, E. and Lieberman, L. (2020). Experts: Sex Education Should Begin in Kindergarten
Montclair State University News
. Experts: Sex Education Should Begin In Kindergarten
– Press Room - Montclair State University
Mandigo, D.(2020). Pros and Cons of Sex Education in School Children: Review.
IDOSR
Publications
. IDOSR-JAS-51-42-45-2020.-UN.pdf
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