Putting the “Comprehensive” in Comprehensive Sexuality Education: a Review Exploring Young Adult Literature as a School-based Intervention

INTRODUCTION: In this article, we review research on the impact of young adult literature (YAL) on young people’s sexuality-related beliefs. This research points to the potential of YAL as a tool through which schools can offer sex education that is truly “comprehensive” by providing young people an opportunity to grapple with questions about gender, sexuality, and healthy relationships in literature classes, and to complement CSE in health education classes. This broader approach addresses a potential limitation of school-based comprehensive sex education (CSE). CSE certainly promotes young people’s health and well-being, but an emphasis on biological dimensions of sexual and reproductive health to the exclusion of social factors, or insufficient time to address social dimensions of sexual and reproductive health, can fail to amplify or even undermine CSE messages about healthy relationships and sexuality. METHODS: This scoping review examined research on YAL dealing with dating and relationships, gender role development, LGBTQ life, sexuality, sexual behaviors, and sexual health outcomes in Communications Abstracts, ERIC, MEDLINE, MLA International Bibliography, and PsycINFO databases. The search, run in December 2020, returned 265 articles, of which 18 were empirical studies of YAL and sexuality that met inclusion criteria for the review. Each included study was examined to identify the books’ impacts and the methodological approach to assessing those impacts. CONCLUSIONS: Existing research suggests that YAL in the classroom can affect discourses on masculinity, femininity, violence, sexual health, and LGBTQ life. Bringing YAL into different classroom settings has the potential to be a powerful force in integrated CSE. POLICY IMPLICATIONS: Using YAL in a variety of classroom settings, including but not limited to health and English Language Arts, will strengthen the comprehensive aspects of CSE.