Sex education in the inner city. Learning and retention.

The Discovery program, initiated in 1982, includes two separate one-hour presentations on sex education. It is presented by medical student volunteers to children in the seventh and eighth grades of inner-city public schools. A study including 1,133 youngsters demonstrated a 32% improvement in scores with excellent retention. A control group of 126 students tested three times who did not hear the program demonstrated no learning from the test alone. Socioeconomic status, grade, and sex all influenced the level of knowledge prior to instruction but did not affect the degree of learning. Searches of the medical and educational literature reveal that this appears to be the most thoroughly investigated sex education course in the United States for any grade level. In view of its low cost and ease of implementation, the program could well serve as a model for junior high school sex education curricula in other school systems.