In a New York Times, online article published on Nov 5th, 2010, Pamela Paul, author of “A is for Abstinence” writes about how a study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found a “decided” link between celibacy and good grades. Now the title of this article caught my attention with the abstinence word, and I was very interested in finding out what they meant by A is for Abstinence. But when I read this brief report, I found it to be very a problematic article because of the cross use of words and the lack of support for her statement. First she uses the term Abstinence in here title of this article but then cites that students who are “celibate” have good grades. Now according to the common use of celibacy, it does not equal or have the same meaning as the term Abstinence, with Abstinence being associated with virginity, where as celibacy can be obtained rather a person is consider a virgin or not.
The next statement she makes that I have a issue with is when she say “Among high school student who earn mostly A’s, 32 percent have had intercourse, compared with 69 percent of their peers with D’s and F’s.” One thing she never states in this article is the location in which this study took place, the number of participants, and the social economic background of those participants, which could have a major affect on how the data could be interpreted. Nor does she speak about other factors that could be contributing to this out come. It is very interesting to me how piece of studies can be used to covey a personal point without the detailed support need to validate the statement.
Orignal Article link: A is for Abstinence
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/education/07sex-grades-t.html?_r=1&ref=sex
