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Master's Thesis: Introducing Consent Through a Comprehensive Sex Education Approach
Palazzetti, Victoria Lauren
Palazzetti, Victoria Lauren
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Sex instruction—United States, Consent (Law)—Study and teaching—United States, Health education (Elementary)—United States, Curriculum planning—United States, Child sexual abuse—Prevention—Study and teaching
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Abstract
The focus of this thesis is to bring awareness to the lack of mention of consent within sex education in the United States and furthermore provide a curriculum that can be implemented in elementary schools to teach students about the importance of consent. The majority of K-12 schools in the United States teach using an abstinence-only sex education approach, which emphasizes to students that they should abstain from sex until marriage. I argue in this thesis that the United States should shift their approach from an abstinence-only sex education model to a comprehensive sex education model, as used in the Netherlands. A comprehensive sex education approach includes multiple other sexual health topics, such as consent, rather than simply preaching to abstain from sex. This approach highlights the importance of students understanding the importance of consent. My unit, titled Consent, was written to be implemented in a 5th grade English Language Arts classroom. The unit will help students answer the questions “what is consent?” and “why is consent essential?” With this project, I hope to encourage teachers to incorporate consent education in their classrooms by providing them with all the necessary reasons and supplemental resources to do so. By providing this project as a resource, steps will be made to decrease the alarming statistics surrounding sexual violence in the United States.