Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Politics of Implementation in Abstinence-Only Sex Education

本项目分析从联邦到地方一级的纯禁欲教育，主要侧重于地方组织的执行活动。这项联邦计划旨在通过专注于婚前性节制来防止青少年怀孕。除了对联邦政策和立法辩论的话语分析以及对全州项目的定量分析外，人种学分析还将研究纽约市郊区的两个地方项目，包括一个非营利组织和一个基于信仰的慈善团体。研究考虑了权力下放对社会政策实施的影响。具体来看一下关于性别和性的议程，当这些议程从联邦政府转移到地方政府时，它们是如何转变的？什么因素解释了项目实施中的分歧？政府越来越依赖非营利组织和宗教组织提供直接服务，但效果如何？随着联邦政府积极寻求扩大宗教团体在提供社会服务方面的作用，从禁欲计划到职业培训，这个问题变得迫在眉睫。这项研究认为，通过权力下放的过程，政府的规模已经发生了根本性的转变，从联邦政府到地方政府。这引起了管理方式的转变，越来越多地通过社区自律和社区行动者（如非营利组织和基于信仰的组织）来实现。这些趋势影响到一系列社会项目，并对社会产生更广泛的影响。纯禁欲教育是联邦政府向家庭价值观和社会规划全面转变的一部分，包括负责任的父亲和促进婚姻的计划。禁欲计划在过去十年中增长了1500%。在实践中，我们不知道什么是禁欲计划，也不知道成功的禁欲计划是否可以复制。随着新一代的年轻人在禁欲的议程下成长，我们需要知道这些节目传递了什么样的信息，以及这些信息是如何被纳入年轻人对自己的理解，他们的性取向，以及男性和女性在美国社会中的适当角色。因此，这个项目的广泛影响源于它对学术、政策制定者和实践者对禁欲项目的具体活动以及参与青少年教育和性相关项目的组织类型的理解的贡献。这项研究在学术辩论之外具有社会政策相关性，因为它研究了直接服务提供的两个主要趋势的交集：明确强调社会项目中的道德价值观，以及基于信仰和非营利组织在服务提供中的作用。

This project analyzes abstinence-only education from the federal to the local level, with a primary focus on the implementation activities of local organizations. This federal program aims to prevent teen pregnancy by focusing exclusively on sexual abstinence until marriage. In addition to a discourse analysis of the federal policy and legislative debates and a quantitative analysis of the statewide programs, ethnographic analysis will examine two local programs in the outer-boroughs of New York City, including a nonprofit organization and a faith-based charity group. The research considers the impact of devolution on the implementation of social policy. Looking specifically at agendas on gender and sexuality, how are these agendas transformed as they move from the federal to the local level? What factors explain divergence in program implementation? The government is increasingly relying on nonprofits and faith-based organizations to deliver direct services, but to what effect? This question gains immediacy, as the federal government actively seeks an expanded role for the faith-based community in social service provision, from abstinence programs to job training. This research argues that there has been a fundamental shift in the scale of government, from the federal to the local through the processes of devolution. This has occasioned a shift in the means of governance, increasingly done through community self-regulation and community actors such as nonprofit and faith-based organizations. These trends affect an array of social programs and impact society more broadly. Abstinence-only education is part of an overall shift in the federal agenda towards family values social programming, including responsible fatherhood and marriage promotion programs. The abstinence program has grown by 1,500% over the last decade. We have little idea what constitutes an abstinence program in practice, nor if successful abstinence programs are replicable. As a new generation of youth grows up under an abstinence agenda, we need to know what kinds of messages are being transmitted through these programs and how these messages are incorporated in the understandings of youth about themselves, their sexuality, and the appropriate role of men and women in U.S. society. Thus the broader impacts of this project stem from its contribution to academic, policymaker and practitioner understandings of the specific activities of abstinence programs and the types of organizations involved in youth education and sexuality-related programs. This study has social policy relevance outside of academic debates as it examines the intersection of two major trends in direct service provision: an explicit emphasis on moral values in social programs and the role of faith-based and nonprofit organizations in service delivery.