Abstract
Substantial bodies of literature have examined public opinion about sexual education, the politicization of sexual education in public schools, and connections between population characteristics and social policies. At present, however, little is known about whether and how population characteristics predict the likelihood of specific sexual education policies. We analyze data at the state level in the USA to determine if and how specific religious aspects of states’ populations influence the likelihood of specific sexual education policies. Results indicate that high levels of theism significantly increase the likelihood of sexual education policies stressing abstinence, while higher levels of individuals not actively participating in organized religion correlate with a significantly higher likelihood of having sexual education policy that mandates the coverage of contraception. We discuss these findings in a framework of symbolic politics and moral communities, focusing on the intersections of religion, politics, and sexuality.
Notes
Notably, both liberal and conservative American ideologies support the notion of childhood innocence, leading to ideas of “youthful sexual innocence and irredeemable sexual corruption” (Fields 2005, p. 560). The use of rhetoric about innocent children being corrupted or harmed is a powerful and effective means of gaining political ground, regardless of the specific policy in question (Best 1990), but especially in cases involving girls’ sexuality, such as sex education programs (see Egan and Hawkes 2008).
At the same time, experimental studies are limited in terms of external validity, while observational studies of policy implementation cannot offer definitive conclusions regarding causality, particularly where states with high levels of teen pregnancy institute stricter abstinence-only sexual education policies. For example, SB3310, a 2012 law passed in Tennessee forbids anything that promotes “gateway sexuality”; but also has a provision stating that … if the most recent, annual data maintained by the department of health, state center for health statistics, indicate that pregnancy rates in any county exceeded nineteen and five tenths (19.5) pregnancies per one thousand (1,000) females aged eleven (11) through eighteen (18), then every [local education agency] within the county shall locally devise, adopt, and implement a program of family life education in conformance with the curriculum guidelines established for such programs by this section.
In such circumstances, the implementation of abstinence-only education and teen pregnancy outcomes may operate in a feedback loop of policy and demography. For full text of the bill, see http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/107/Bill/SB3310.pdf.
Another facet of the current research on sexuality programs focuses on how instructors feel about teaching sex education. One challenge that teachers face is trying to present sexuality education in the midst of many restrictions: federal, state, and local. An exploratory study in New Jersey revealed that only 1/3 of teachers felt satisfied with their ability to teach “family life education” courses in the face of these restrictions (Firestone 1994). Meanwhile, a survey of teachers in public secondary schools found that a focus on abstinence by teachers correlated highly with decreased presentation of information on sexuality, contraception, and family planning (Landry et al. 2003). As such, the sexual attitudes of teachers are a noteworthy component of the delivery of sexual education (Kehily 2002).
These numbers combine respondents for the continental and Alaska and Hawaii datasets.
Data available at: http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/RCMSCY.asp.
The Pew RLS asked two additional questions about God. The first asked theists to rate the level of certainty in their beliefs, from absolutely certain (1) to not at all certain (4). The second asked believers to choose which was closer to their view, that God was “A person with whom people can have a relationship” or an “impersonal force.” We used these to give states scores on mean levels of certainty and anthropomorphism among believers. We also standardized these metrics, along with the yes/no theism measure and created and additive index of theism that combined belief in general, certainty, and anthropomorphism. None of these metrics were as effective predictors of sexual education policy as the simple yes/no measure aggregated to the state level.
In addition to the controls presented, we also tested models controlling for levels of direct democracy in state legislatures, percentage white in the population, median age, sex ratios, and income inequality. None of these metrics altered the relative impact of our primary findings.
The relative consistency of levels of literalism for predicting both outcomes of interest suggest that this facet of population religiosity also warrants further inquiry.
References
Allison, P. D. (1999). Logistic regression using the SAS system: theory and application. Cary: SAS.
Andorfer, E., Michael, J., Moskowitz, L., Siebel, L., & Grant, J. A. (1998). Who decides? A state-by-state review of abortion and reproductive rights. Washington D.C.: NARAL.
Arceneaux, K. (2002). Direct democracy and the link between public opinion and state abortion policy. State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 2(4), 372–387.
Baker, J. O., & Smith, B. G. (2009). The nones: social characteristics of the religiously unaffiliated. Social Forces, 89(3), 1251–1264.
Berry, W. D., Ringquist, E. J., Fording, R. C., & Hanson, R. L. (1998). Measuring citizen and government ideology in the American states, 1960–93. American Journal of Political Science, 42(1), 327–348.
Berry, W. D. (2007). The measurement and stability of citizen ideology. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 7, 111–132.
Berry, W. D., Ringquist, E. J., Fording, R. C., Hanson, R. L., & Klarner, C. E. (2010). Measuring citizen and government ideology in the U.S. states: a re-appraisal. State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 10(2), 117–135.
Best, J. (1990). Threatened children: rhetoric and concern about child-victims. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Bleakley, A., Hennessey, M., & Fishbein, M. (2006). Public opinion of sex education in U.S. schools. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 160(11), 1151–1156.
Bleakley, A. (2010). Predicting preferences for types of sex education in US schools. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 7(1), 50–57.
Brace, P., Sims-Butler, K., Arceneaux, K., & Johnson, M. (2002). Public opinion in the American states: new perspectives using national survey data. American Journal of Political Science, 46(1), 173–189.
Bratton, K. A. (2005). Critical mass theory revisited: the behavior and success of token women in state legislatures. Politics & Gender, 1(1), 97–125.
Burstein, P. (2003). The impact of public opinion on public policy: a review and an agenda. Political Research Quarterly, 56(1), 29–40.
Conger, K. H., & Green, J. C. (2002). Spreading out and digging in: Christian conservatives and state Republican parties. Campaigns and Elections, 23(1), 58–65.
Constantine, N. A., Jerman, P., & Huang, A. X. (2007). California parents’ preference and beliefs regarding school-based sex education policy. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 39(3), 167–175.
Dailard, C. (2001). Sex education: politicians, parents, teachers and teens. The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy, 4(1), 9–12.
Davis, M. S. (1983). Smut: erotic reality/obscene ideology. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
DeRogatis, A. (2009). “Born again is a sexual term”: demons, STDs, and God’s healing sperm. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 77(2), 275–302.
Di Mauro, D., & Joffe, C. (2007). The religious right and the reshaping of sexual policy: an examination of reproductive rights and sexuality education. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 4(1), 67–92.
DiMaggio, P., Evans, J., & Bryson, B. (1996). Have Americans’ social attitudes become more polarized? American Journal of Sociology, 102(3), 690–755.
Doan, A. E., & MacFarlane, D. R. (2012). Saying no to abstinence-only education: an analysis of state decision-making. Publius, 42(4), 613–635.
Doan, A. E., & Williams, J. C. (2008). The politics of virginity: abstinence in sex education. Westport: Praeger.
Domke, D., & Coe, K. (2010). The God strategy: how religion became a political weapon in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Egan, R. D., & Hawkes, G. L. (2008). Endangered girls and incendiary objects: unpacking the discourse on sexualization. Sexuality and Culture, 12(4), 291–311.
Eisenberg, M. E., Bernat, D. H., Bearinger, L. H., & Resnick, M. D. (2008). Support for comprehensive sexuality education: perspectives from parents of school-age youth. Journal of Adolescent Health, 42(4), 352–359.
Eisenberg, M. E. (2009). Condom provision and education in Minnesota public schools: a telephone survey of parents. Journal of School Health, 79(9), 438–439.
Erikson, R. S., Wright, G. R., & McIver, J. P. (1993). Statehouse democracy: public opinion and policy in the American states. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fields, J. (2005). “Children having children”: race, innocence, and sexuality education. Social Problems, 52(4), 549–571.
Finke, R., & Scheitle, C. P. (2005). Accounting for the uncounted: computing correctives for the 2000 RCMS data. Review of Religious Research, 47(1), 5–22.
Firestone, W. A. (1994). The content and context of sexuality education: an exploratory study in one state. Family Planning Perspectives, 26(3), 125–131.
Gault-Sherman, M., & Draper, S. (2012). What will the neighbors think? The effect of moral communities on cohabitation. Review of Religious Research, 54(1), 45–67.
Gibson, M. T. (2004). Culture wars in state education policy: a look at the relative treatment of evolutionary theory in state science standards. Social Science Quarterly, 85(5), 1129–1149.
Green, J. C., & Dionne, E. J. (2008). Religion and American politics: More secular, more Evangelical, or both? In R. Teixeira (Ed.), Red, blue, and purple America: the future of election demographics (pp. 194–224). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Green, J. C., Guth, J. L., & Wilcox, C. (1998). Less than conquerors: The Christian Right in state Republican parties. In A. N. Costain & A. S. McFarland (Eds.), Social movements and American political institutions (pp. 117–135). Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield.
Gruenberg, B. C. (1938). Sex education in secondary schools: 1938. Journal of Social Hygiene, 24(9), 527–532.
Gusfield, J. R. (1981). The culture of public problems: drinking-driving and the moral order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Guttmacher Institute (2015) State policies in brief: Sex and HIV education. Available at: http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_SE.pdf.
Hackett, C., & Lindsay, M. D. (2008). Measuring evangelicalism: consequences of different operationalization strategies. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47(3), 499–514.
Hunter, J. D. (1991). Culture wars: the struggle to define America. New York: Basic Books.
Irvine, J. (2000). Doing it with words: discourse and the sex education culture wars. Critical Inquiry, 27(1), 58–76.
Irvine, J. (2002). Talk about sex: the battles over sex education in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ito, K. E., Gizlice, Z., Owen-O’Dowd, J., Foust, E., Leone, P. A., & Miller, W. C. (2006). Parent opinion of sexuality education in a state with mandated abstinence education: does policy match parental preference? Journal of Adolescent Health, 39(5), 634–641.
Jemmott, J. B., Jemmott, L. S., & Fong, G. T. (2010). Efficacy of a theory-based abstinence-only intervention over 24 months: a randomized controlled trial with young adolescents. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 164(2), 152–159.
Jones, D. E., Doty, S., Grammich, C., Horsch, J. E., Houseal, R., Lynn, M., Marcum, J. P., Sanchagrin, K. M., & Taylor, R. H. (2002). Religious congregations and membership in the United States 2000: an enumeration by region, state and county based on data reported for 149 religious bodies. Nashville: Glenmary Research Center.
Kehily, M. J. (2002). Sexing the subject: teachers, pedagogies and sex education. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, 2(3), 215–231.
Kendall, N. (2008a). The state(s) of sexuality in America. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 5(2), 1–11.
Kendall, N. (2008b). Sexuality education in an abstinence-only era: a comparative case study of two U.S. states. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 5(2), 23–44.
Kohler, P. K., Manhart, L. M., & Lafferty, W. E. (2008). Abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education and the initiation of sexual activity and teen pregnancy. Journal of Adolescent Health, 42(4), 344–351.
Landry, D. J., Kaeser, L., & Richards, C. L. (1999). Abstinence promotion and the provision of information about contraception in public school education policies. Family Planning Perspectives, 31(6), 280–286.
Landry, D. J., Darroch, J. E., Singh, S., & Higgins, J. (2003). Factors associated with the content of sex education in U.S. public secondary schools. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 35(6), 261–269.
Lax, J. R., & Phillips, J. H. (2009). Gay rights in the states: public opinion and policy responsiveness. The American Political Science Review, 103(3), 367–386.
Lax, J. R. (2012). The democratic deficit in the states. American Journal of Political Science, 56(1), 148–166.
Layman, G. C. (1999). “Culture wars” in the American party system: religious and cultural change among partisan activists since 1972. American Politics Research, 27(1), 89–121.
Layman, G. C., Carsey, T. M., Green, J. C., Herrera, R., & Cooperman, R. (2010). Activists and conflict extension in American party politics. The American Political Science Review, 104(2), 324–346.
Layman, G. C., & Green, J. C. (2006). Wars and rumours of wars: the contexts of cultural conflict in American political behaviour. British Journal of Political Science, 36(1), 61–89.
Lee, M. R., & Bartkowski, J. P. (2004). “Love thy neighbor?” Moral communities, civic engagement, and juvenile homicide in rural areas. Social Forces, 82(3), 1001–1035.
Lewis, D. C. (2011). Direct democracy and minority rights: same-sex marriage bans in the U.S. states. Social Science Quarterly, 92(2), 364–383.
Lewis, K., & Budd-Phillips, S. (2010). The measure of America, 2010–2011: mapping risks and resilience. New York: NYU Press.
Luker, K. (1996). Dubious conceptions: the politics of the teenage pregnancy crisis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Luker, K. (2006). When sex goes to school. New York: W. W. Norton.
Lupia, A., Krupnikov, Y., Levine, A. S., Piston, S., & Hagen-Jamar, A. V. (2010). Why state constitutions differ in their treatment of same-sex marriage. Journal of Politics, 72(4), 1222–1235.
Manza, J., & Cook, F. L. (2002). A democratic polity? Three views of policy responsiveness to public opinion in the United States. American Politics Research, 30(6), 630–667.
Norrander, B. (2001). Measuring state public opinion with the Senate National Election Study. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 1(1), 111–125.
Norrander, B., & Manzano, S. (2010). Minority group opinion in the states. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 10(4), 446–483.
Norrander, B., & Wilcox, C. (1999). Public opinion and policymaking in the states: the case of post-Roe abortion policy. Policy Studies Journal, 27(4), 707–722.
Ovadia, S., & Moore, L. M. (2010). Decomposing the moral community: religious contexts and teen childbearing. City & Community, 9(3), 320–334.
Rose, S. (2005). Going too far? Sex, sin and social policy. Social Forces, 84(2), 1207–1232.
Santelli, J., Ott, M. A., Lyon, M., Rogers, J., Summers, D., & Schleifer, R. (2006). Abstinence and abstinence-only education: a review of U.S. policies and programs. Journal of Adolescent Health, 38(1), 72–81.
Scheitle, C. P., & Hahn, B. B. (2011). From the pews to policy: specifying Evangelical Protestantism’s influence on states’ sexual orientation policies. Social Forces, 89(3), 913–933.
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. (2011). State profiles: a portrait of sexuality education and abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in the states. New York: SIECUS.
Shapiro, R. Y. (2011). Public opinion and American democracy. Public Opinion Quarterly, 75(5), 982–1017.
Sharp, E. B. (1999). The sometime connection: public opinion and social policy. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Smith, C., Emerson, M. O., Gallagher, S., Kennedy, P., & Sikkink, D. (1998). American Evangelicalism: embattled and thriving. Chicago,: Chicago University Press.
Stanger-Hall, K. F., & Hall, D. W. (2011). Abstinence-only education and teen pregnancy rates: why we need comprehensive sex education in the U.S. PLoS ONE, 6(10), e24658. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024658.
Stark, R. (1996). Religion as context: hellfire and delinquency one more time. Sociology of Religion, 57(2), 163–173.
Stark, R., & Bainbridge, W. S. (1996). Religion, deviance and social control. New York: Routledge.
Stark, R., Kent, L., & Doyle, D. P. (1982). Religion and delinquency: the ecology of a lost relationship. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 19(1), 4–24.
Steensland, B., Park, J. Z., Regnerus, M. D., Robinson, L. D., Wilcox, W. B., & Woodberry, R. (2000). The measure of American religion: toward improving the state of the art. Social Forces, 79(1), 291–324.
Thomas, S. (1991). The impact of women on state legislative policies. Journal of Politics, 54(3), 958–976.
Trenholm, C., Devaney, B., Fortson, K., Clark, M., Quay, L., & Wheeler, J. (2008). Impacts of abstinence education on teen sexual activity, risk of pregnancy, and risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 27(2), 255–276.
Ulmer, J. T., Bader, C. D., & Gault, M. (2008). Do moral communities play a role in sentencing? Evidence from Pennsylvania. The Sociological Quarterly, 49(4), 737–768.
United States Department of Health and Human Services. (2014). Trends in teen pregnancy and childbearing. http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/reproductive-health/teen-pregnancy/trends.html.
Welshimer, K. J., & Harris, S. E. (1994). A survey of rural parents’ attitudes toward sexuality education. The Journal of School Health, 64(9), 347–352.
Wilcox, C. (1986). Fundamentalists and politics: an analysis of the effects of differing operational definitions. Journal of Politics, 48(4), 1041–1051.
Williams, R. (Ed.). (1997). Culture wars in American politics: critical reviews of popular myth. Hawthorne: Aldine De Gruyter.
Wuthnow, R. (1996). Restructuring of American religion: further evidence. Sociological Inquiry, 66(3), 303–329.
Yang, Z., & Gaydos, L. M. (2010). Reasons for and challenges of recent increases in teen birth rates: a study of family planning service policies and demographic changes at the state level. Journal of Adolescent Health, 46(6), 517–524.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Baker, J.O., Smith, K.K. & Stoss, Y.A. Theism, Secularism, and Sexual Education in the United States. Sex Res Soc Policy 12, 236–247 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-015-0187-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-015-0187-8