Ellen S. More, "The Transformation of American Sex Education: Mary Calderone and the Fight for Sexual Health" (NYU Press, 2022)
Mid-century America had a problem talking about sex. Dr. Mary Calderone first diagnosed this condition and, in 1964, led the uphill battle to de-stigmatize sex education. Supporters hailed her as the \u201cgrandmother of modern sex education\u201d while her detractors painted her as an \u201caging libertine,\u201d but both could agree that she was quickly shaping the way sex was discussed in the classroom.\nPart biography, part social history,\xa0The Transformation of American Sex Education: Mary Calderone and the Fight for Sexual Health\xa0(NYU Press, 2022) for the first time situates Dr. Mary Calderone at the center of decades of political, cultural, and religious conflict in the fight for comprehensive sex education. Ellen S. More examines Americans\u2019 attempts to come to terms with the vexed subject of sex education in schools from the late 1940s to the early twenty-first century. Using Mary Calderone\u2019s life and career as a touchstone, she traces the origins of modern sex education in the United States from the work of a group of reformers who coalesced around Calderone to create the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) in 1964, to the development and use of the competing approaches known as \u201cabstinence-based\u201d and \u201ccomprehensive\u201d sex education from the 1980s into the twenty-first century.\n\nA fascinating and timely read,\xa0The Transformation of American Sex Education\xa0provides a substantial contribution to the history of one of America\u2019s most intense and protracted culture wars, and the first account of the woman who fought those battles.\nJane Scimeca\xa0is Professor of History at Brookdale Community College.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies