Teachers' Perceptions of Personal, Organizational, and Community Barriers and Facilitators to Implementing Sexuality and Reproductive Health Education.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore, in depth, educators' perceptions of the personal, organizational, and community barriers and facilitators to implementing sexuality and reproductive health education in secondary public schools. Twenty educators participated in the study, all of whom had taken at least one graduate course in human sexuality and family planning. Informants were given brief questionnaires which requested demographic information, and surveyed attitudes relevant to teaching about sexuality and reproductive health. In addition, they were interviewed at length. The questionnaires and interviews explored educators' perceptions regarding the need for sexuality and reproductive health education, the teaching opportunities and challenges they perceived, the key sources of internal and external support they received, and the implementation issues for including these areas in teaching. In addition, the need for and effects of continuing professional education were discussed. Finally, informants described their school communities in terms of perceived income levels, observed pregnancy rates among students, and the racial composition of the school. Analysis of the data was accomplished through subjective comparative analysis of themes, development of case histories, and also by statistical analysis of data derived from the questionnaires and selected interview material. Analysis further separated reports of barriers and facilitators into those which pertained to the individual educator, the school organization, and the community. The study resulted in several interesting findings. First, statistical tests of differences showed only slight differences among teachers' self-reports of interest and competence regarding sexuality and reproductive health education. Yet teachers reported broad and statistically significant differences in their schools' responsiveness to sexuality and reproductive health education. Thus, it appeared that other factors were more influential in shaping teachers' perceptions of risk and teaching opportunities than were personal, individual, and background factors such as teachers' race, number of years of teaching experience, self-assessed interest or competence to teach this material. Second, educators who had taken more than one graduate course relating to human sexuality reported feeling more interested and competent to teach about these areas. Also they perceived a greater number of teaching opportunities and less risk than their counterparts with less graduate training in human sexuality. Third, educators reported that various organizational factors such as students', colleagues', and administrators' attitudes toward sexuality education were not strongly significant, either as barriers or facilitators in implementing sexuality education. Further, unlike previous research indicating that administrators experience more risk than classroom teachers when preparing to introduce a sex education program, respondents to this study reported that teachers experienced far greater risk. Fourth, parental support for sex education was reported to vary along with perceived levels of income in the community, student pregnancy rates, and the racial composition of the school. Schools with predominantly White and working to upper middle class students whose pregnancy rates were low were reported to have parents less supportive of teachers' interests in providing sexuality education; conversely, schools with predominantly Black and low income students with high pregnancy rates were perceived to have parents much more supportive of teachers providing sexuality and reproductive health education. This study has provided a basis for future research investigating the interaction between educators concerned with implementing sexuality and reproductive health education and other members of the school community.