New approaches to sexuality education and underlying paradigms

The issue of sexuality education has been—and still is—contested to varying degrees. While sexuality education in many western European countries has a long tradition going back to the 1950s, in other parts of the world it became more prominent after the onset of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s. At present, the field is characterized by different underlying paradigms often rooted in moral convictions. The dominant approach in the US to sexuality education is mainly influenced by public health concerns—including prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unintended pregnancies, and possibly…