According to socialization theory, sex education at home should lead to greater sexual literacy among young people. However, current data for Germany are lacking. Against this background, the aim of the present analysis was to link for the first time general talk about sexuality in the parental home and specifically contraceptive advice by parents with the sexual risk behavior of adolescent daughters and sons. The data basis was the 9th wave of the representative survey "Youth Sexuality" of the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA).
Data were analyzed from all sexually active 14- to 17-year-old adolescents in the sample, from whom own information on sexual behavior as well as information from their parents on sex education behavior was available (N = 357). Consistent with expectations, sexual education in the parental home was found to be associated with lower-risk sexual behavior, although the data do not provide information on causal pathways. The analysis was conducted by the Media Psychology and Media Design Group at Technische Universität Ilmenau in cooperation with the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) in Germany.
Döring, N., Walter, R., & Scharmanski, S. (2023). Elterliche Sexualaufklärung und sexuelles Risikoverhalten bei Töchtern und Söhnen: Befunde aus der Repräsentativbefragung „Jugendsexualität“ [Parental Sex Education and Sexual Risk Behavior of Daughters and Sons: Findings from the Representative Survey “Youth Sexuality”]. Bundesgesundheitsblatt – Gesundheitsforschung – Gesundheitsschutz, eFirst. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00103-023-03783-4