Amie Hess
Dissertation Title: A Leap of Faith: The Politics of Implementation in Abstinence-Only Sex Education
Dissertation Abstract: This dissertation examines the impact of federal abstinence-only sex education policy on the construction of gender and sexuality among American youth. I argue that sex education is a key site for understanding critical shifts in the content, funding, and delivery of American social policies. Drawing on two years of ethnography in one faith-based and one secular abstinence-only sex education organization and interviews with 23 additional abstinence-only providers, my research examines the mechanisms by which federal abstinence policy is translated and remade at the local level. How do local abstinence organizations understand abstinence education and how do these understandings relate to the national abstinence discourse? How does a policy mandating the teaching of sexual abstinence until marriage shape the construction of teen sexuality? Of gender roles? Faith-based organizations have been sought out as partners in the implementation of abstinence-education, among other social programs. What role does religion play in a hybrid welfare state? I find that while abstinence programs reinforce a heterosexual norm and feminize the work of sexual responsibility, organizations demonstrate tremendous diversity in both the level of intentionality and the strategies used to manage both gender and sexuality. Surprisingly, I find that religion does not impact organizational practices, but other factors such as level of professionalization, organizational philosophy, and bureaucratization do matter. My dissertation makes contributions to the literatures of sex and gender, political sociology, and our understanding of social policy.
Curriculum Vitae |
