Abstract
While Chinese adolescents become more sexually active, their sexual attitudes are profoundly influenced by traditional gender and sexual norms. The tensions between the rapid transition in youth sexuality and lags in sex education call for a paradigm shift of sexuality education in China. The present study examined the effectiveness of a school-based empowerment comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) intervention in changing adolescents’ sexual knowledge, gender and sexual attitudes, and sexual self-efficacy. We used data from a quasi-experimental intervention study with self-administered pretest and posttest surveys conducted among 1131 10th grade high school students in Lanzhou, northwest China. Whereas 583 participants in two intervention schools attended 12 45-min CSE sessions focusing on gender, rights, and critical thinking skills across 4–7 months, 548 participants in two comparison schools received no or limited conventional sex education. After controlling for differences in sociodemographics and in the influence of family, peers, and internet use between the two groups, female and male adolescents exhibited significantly more accurate sexual knowledge, stronger endorsement of nontraditional gender roles, and greater rejection of sexual double standards immediately after the intervention. Additionally, young women reported significantly higher sexual self-efficacy following the intervention. The findings suggest that the school-based empowerment CSE intervention is helpful in creating an environment in which both young men and young women benefit in sexual knowledge and gender awareness and young women increase their sexual decision-making skills, thereby lending support to the theory and practice of an empowerment CSE approach.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. Jan Yoder for her enormous help in the entire revising process, two anonymous reviewers, Professor Robert Tierney, and Dr. Matt Hammond for their helpful suggestions for revision, and Dr. Dan Tang for her help with SPSS.
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Publication of the present article was supported by the Ford Foundation, China Office (Grant Number 1105–0568), and the International Joint Research Project of the Faculty of Education (Project Number ICER202005), Beijing Normal University.
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Sa, Z., Tian, L. & Wang, X. Evidence for a Comprehensive Sexuality Education Intervention that Enhances Chinese Adolescents’ Sexual Knowledge and Gender Awareness and Empowers Young Women. Sex Roles 85, 357–370 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-021-01223-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-021-01223-8