Wednesday, July 6, 2011

THE EXTENT OF PRESERVICE HIV/AIDS EDUCATION

THE EXTENT OF PRESERVICE HIV/AIDS EDUCATION

Despite the fact that most elementary health education is provided by regular classroom teachers, only 31 states require elementary teachers to have health coursework (Stone & Perry, 1990). Most health education at the secondary level is provided by certified health teachers, although a recent survey found that one-third of secondary health teachers majored in a field other than health or science (Collins, Small, Kann, Pateman, Gold, & Kolbe, 1995). For this reason, Guidelines for Effective School Health Education to Prevent the Spread of AIDS called upon colleges of education to provide preservice AIDS education for future teachers (CDC, 1988). The following studies suggest a lack of HIV-specific training in preservice teacher education:

*In one study of 197 institutions of preservice teacher education, only 54% of elementary-emphasis students and 58.1% of intermediate-emphasis students remembered receiving any planned instruction regarding HIV (White & Ballard, 1993).

*Fewer than half of elementary education majors surveyed understood protective procedures, such as safely cleaning up blood or bodily fluids (Ballard, White, & Glascoff, 1990).

*A study of college catalogs conducted by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) concluded that no universities required a sexuality education course for preservice teachers, and only 14% required all preservice teachers to take a health education course (Rodriguez, Young, Renfro, Asencio, & Haffner, 1995/96).

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