Emerging adults' experiences of middle and high school sexual health education in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario

Abstract

The current study examined the perception of sexual health education (SHE) being provided in middle and high schools in three Canadian provinces from a sample of young adults. Participants were 296 undergraduate students (91 men, 205 women) between the ages of 18 and 24 who had gone to both middle school and high school in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, or Ontario. There were few differences between provinces. Almost all participants reported receiving SHE in middle school but about a quarter had not received SHE in high school. On average, participants rated the SHE they had received in middle school as fair and in high school as good. Participants, on average, rated most of 21 specified sexual health topics as covered poorly and covered. The men tended to rate the SHE they had received in middle school more positively than did the women. Participants reported that teachers used a variety of methods in the classroom, 6.78 of 9 possible methods on average. Multiple regression analyses showed that higher perceived quality of SHE was associated with better topic coverage, the extent to which the topics covered matched their interests, and the number of different methods used. Participants reported that peers were a more important source of sexual health information than was SHE. The results point to a continued need to improve the quality of SHE provided in Canadian schools.