Abstract:
Adolescents comprise a substantial proportion of the 'at risk' population for sexually transmissible diseases (STD's) and AIDS. They are potentially amenable to the curricular influences of the high school in promoting lifestyle choices. In so doing curricula may have to cater for the different meanings attributed to sexuality and sexual relationships by boys and girls, in which receptivity to curriculum implementation predisposes individuals towards the adoption of a lifestyle conducive to healthy sexual behaviour. In this study an instrument was constructed to measure key constitutive variables of receptivity in the dimensions of 'understandings' and 'affects'. It was administered to a sample of high school students (N = 533). Reliability coefficients were calculated for each of the instrument scales after they had been reduced using factor analytic procedures. Data were subjected to ANOVA, with sex and school as the dependent variables and eight instrument variables as the independent variables. It was found that as the amount of sexuality education increased the more receptive were adolescents to its content and processes.