Future Sex Educator Perceptions of Rural Versus Urban Instruction: A Case for Community-Centered Sexual Health Education |
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| Authors: | Christina L Jones Robin E Jensen Abigail Selzer King |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Communication, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, Whitewater, WI, USA;2. Department of Communication, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA;3. Department of English, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA |
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| Abstract: | Instructors of sexual health courses in rural areas face unique challenges as they are often forced to use school-based prevention curricula field-tested in urban areas. Research has yet to consider what future sex educators’ regional expectations are for their profession and how those expectations might have an impact on the classroom. Drawing from interviews with 26 sex-educators-in-training, we find that future educators tended to expect that rural communities would be less diverse, more conservative, and less informed about sexual health matters, even though research demonstrates that today's rural communities inconsistently align with those perceptions. |
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| Keywords: | Sexual health health communication teachers rural disparities community-centered sex education |
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