School district choice of sexuality education curriculum in Mississippi

ABSTRACT

In 2011, the US state of Mississippi mandated its school districts to adopt a sexuality education curriculum. Approximately half of districts chose a more comprehensive abstinence-plus curriculum over an abstinence-only curriculum. To understand this outcome, we conducted a logistic regression analysis of school district curriculum choice among Mississippi’s school districts using data from 2012 when districts made the initial curricular decision, and from 2019, to assess continuity of findings. At both time points, poorer districts were more likely to adopt abstinence-plus curricula, despite the associated costs. Urban districts were also significantly more likely to choose abstinence-plus curricula, as were districts connected to Mississippi First, a local non-profit organisation that linked school districts to federal funding for abstinence-plus curricula. Despite the connection between political and sexual liberalism, political liberalism had limited predictive power over district sexuality education curriculum choice. Furthermore, one-third of the districts that adopted abstinence-only curricula were very similar to those that adopted abstinence-plus curricula in terms of poverty, religious adherents, rural location, political liberalism, gonorrhoea burden and racial composition. These findings indicate the importance of state mandates for sexuality education, federal funding for evidence-based curricula, and the presence of supportive local organisations to advance the adoption of more comprehensive sexuality education.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexuality education
• Mississippi
• abstinence-only
• policy
• school district decision making

Acknowledgments

We thank Julia Fischer-Mackey for assistance with data set creation and Aimee Seligstein for other research assistance.

Notes

1. No survey of Mississippi parents on sexuality education has been conducted since 2011.

2. In 2019, the independent organisation Teen Health Mississippi took over the sexuality education work carried out by Mississippi First.  Given the period of analysis predates this change, the article refers exclusively to Mississippi First's work.

3. Although the Trump administration attempted to end funding for this programme (Kantor, Levitz, and Holstrom 2020), it remains funded through 30 September 2023 (Power to Decide 2020).

4. Based on first author’s communication with the deputy director of Teen Health Mississippi in September 2020.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation [grant number 12-102417];