When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex--And Sex Education--Since the Sixties

There's a sexual revolution coming to a schoolroom near you, but it's not the one you remember.

When Sex Goes to School explores the ideas and values behind the fight over sex education through the lives of parents, its most passionate participants. Distinguished sociologist Kristin Luker spent over twenty years talking to people in ordinary communities about sex and how, if at all, it should be taught. Luker argues that Americans are now deeply divided over sex, largely as a legacy of the 1960s. She traces sex education from its birth in 1913 to its more politicized modern incarnation, examining in detail the marriage-minded 1950s and the sexual and gender revolutions of the 1960s. She explores how our parents' sexual attitudes have influenced us and, in turn, how our sexual choices affect the way we teach our children about sex. Her conclusions are unexpected, and after reading this book it is impossible to look at the intersection of the intimate and the political in the same way.