Sexuality Education within Social Work Education

Background:

Sexuality is an integral part of the human experience. Sexuality education is being taught in Masters of Social Work (MSW) programs. However since the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) educational guidelines do not provide any guidelines for sexuality education in social work education, the content and context of sexuality education for pre-service social workers vary widely.

This exploratory study sought to establish a baseline of what current sexuality-related curricula within their MSW program, their attitudes toward the inclusion of sexuality education, and their perception of the supports and barriers to incorporating sexuality-related content into MSW curriculum. This study built on the work and literature of the many professionals who support comprehensive sexuality education as a vital aspect of educating and preparing professional social workers.

Methods:

This quantitative study utilized an online survey resulting in a sample of 596 social work faculty throughout the US. Standard bivariate and multivariate analyses of association and correlation were conducted through SPSS. This included frequency distributions of the responses to all survey questions, across-group comparisons between demographic information and the sexuality education that is reportedly taught, the comfort level faculty report, and the supports and barriers described.

Results:

Findings revealed that a majority of faculty (82%) agreed that sexuality education is important for MSW curriculum. The majority of faculty (60.6%) reported that their MSW program did not offer a stand-alone sexuality-related course. About a quarter (28.2%) reported an elective stand-alone sexuality-related course. Only 1.3% of faculty reported that there was a required sexuality-related course within their MSW program. Although a high percentage (92.2%) reported having a personal comfort level with sexuality-related topics, 79.5% reported their school administration was comfortable with sexuality-related topics being taught. Faculty rated the importance of 23 sexuality-related topics and whether the faculty taught the topic. A higher proportion of faculty rated topics as important to social work education compared to those who reported teaching the same topics. There was a statistically significant relationship between being a faculty at a religiously affiliated college/university and both (1) reporting that the college/university places restrictions on sexuality education (x² = 27.186, p= .000) and (2) reporting that their MSW administration was supportive of sexuality education (x² = 9.410, p= .024). There were additional statistically significant relationships between a number of demographic characteristics of respondents and institutions (i.e., age, sex, levels of education, years of social work professional experience, years teaching social work in higher education, MSW program faculty size, state divisions, and religious institutions) and attitudes toward and teaching of sexuality content.

Implications:

Ultimately, this study revealed that a majority of social work educators believe that sexuality education is an important component to a holistic education for future MSW graduates. There remains a disconnect, however, between believing sexuality education is important and teaching sexuality education.