Public Perspectives on Introducing Sex Education in Romanian Schools: A Quantitative Analysis

Many international organisations agree that sexuality education is a useful topic for the development and well-being of students and society, as they have the right to receive safe and scientifically based information to prevent and combat aggression and possible sexually transmitted diseases. However, the introduction of sex education into the curriculum in Romania has been heavily debated in recent years, with negative opinions from religious and political leaders at the forefront. This research approaches the topic from a quantitative perspective in which the sociological survey was used as the research method, with the research instrument being the survey. The survey also included a number of open-ended questions so that qualitative information could be collected and analyzed. The main aim of this article is to capture the general opinion of parents and adults regarding the introduction of sex education in schools and to identify their possible fears related to the content of this education. The research question we want to answer is: "What is the opinion of adults and parents about the introduction of sex education in schools?" The survey was conducted over a two-week period (May 2023) and comprised a series of 29 questions with different answer options. For this study, we used a group of 518 respondents who were analyzed by gender, age, religion, origin and last completed education. The survey was created in Google Forms and sent online via various social networks. We can therefore not speak of a representative sample, but rather of a random sample, but the relatively large number of responses collected, namely 518, allows us to test the hypotheses, but not to generalize. When analyzing the respondents' answers (using Microsoft Excel), surprising results were obtained that are consistent with the data from the literature, but also in contrast to some recent studies. To summarize, despite the controversial political and religious information circulating in the public sphere today, the majority of adults and parents who participated in our survey believe that sex education should be included in the school curriculum. The results of this survey were unexpectedly promising for the future of Romania, but unfortunately, we cannot generalize them. Respondents want this topic to be taught as early as possible and believe that it will help students to become responsible adults.