Abstract:
The curricular frameworks which guide sex education have been a topic of interest
among social science researchers and scholars. However, the literature has only been
critical of abstinence-only-until-marriage approaches without applying the same level of
scrutiny to comprehensive educational frameworks. To address this gap, this research
uses an interpretive policy analysis to determine how the California Healthy Youth Act
and the Sexual Health Education Accountability Act define students and sex, and how
they bring students and sex in conversation with each other. This analysis establishes five
thematic categories: sex as medically accurate and objective; expectations for students;
sex as risk; students as nonautonomous; and sex as age appropriate. Overall, it was found
the policies promote and value behaviors, relationship styles, and a fear/risk approach to
sex while separating students form their autonomy and excluding other identities, and
relationship and family structures. Future research should focus analysis on
comprehensive sex education, both within and outside o f the classroom. Legislators
should reconsider associating sex with inherent risk and expand current and future
legislation to be more inclusive to better address the sexual diversity of students.
