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Culture wars in South Australia: the sex education debates
Author(s) -
Peppard Judith
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.2008.tb00115.x
Subject(s) - project commissioning , sexuality education , opposition (politics) , human sexuality , indigenous , publishing , abstinence , politics , sociology , gender studies , reproductive health , political science , sex education , economic growth , law , ecology , population , demography , economics , biology
School sexuality education has been a component of Australia's successful and internationally recognized HIV/AIDS strategy since the 1980s and has been well accepted in the community. However South Australia is experiencing a re‐emergence of opposition to school sexuality education orchestrated by groups associated with the United States‐based Christian Right. In this paper I will outline sex education policy developments in Australia and the United States as a framework for discussing the controversy generated around the Sexual Health and Relationships Education (SHARE) program in South Australia in 2003. In doing so I give attention to the similarities between the strategies deployed by the opponents of SHARE and those used to install abstinence‐only‐until‐marriage sex education as national policy in the United States. I will argue that, rather than a phenomenon indigenous to South Australia, these debates are part of an international movement to progress the political goals of the Christian Right.