Exploring European Parents’ Attitudes Towards the Age Appropriateness of Digital Sexuality Education for Adolescents

Abstract

We conducted a multinational cross-sectional survey in Europe to explore parental attitudes toward the appropriate age for adolescents to receive sexuality education through an app interface. This was delivered via an online survey across Belgium (n ¼ 479), the United Kingdom (n ¼ 445), and Italy (n ¼ 454). Parents from Belgium consistently accepted their children accessing digital material at the youngest ages, whereas Italian participants selected the oldest age groups. Most parents, however,endorsed a spiral curriculum, whereby topics are introduced sequentially throughout adolescents’ school careers. Thus, whilst on average participants were com­ fortable with adolescents having access to content on body anatomy younger ages (from 9–12 years to 12–15 years), they approved virtual content on relationships and sex at older school ages (from 12–15 years to 15–18 years). European ethni­ city, liberal sociosexual attitudes, lower religiosity, and higher educational attainment were associated with parents approv­ ing adolescent exposure to digital sex education at younger ages. To our knowledge, this exploratory study is the first to quantitatively examine parental attitudes toward digital sex education curricula, as well as explore the parental characteris­ tics that relate to these attitudes. This work should inform educators internationally on their future efforts to deploy vir­ tual sexuality learning.

Publication
American Journal of Sexuality Education