School-Based Marriage Education
School-Based Marriage Education: An Evaluation of Florida’s High School
Relationship Education Requirement
Introduction
In the United States today, with its high divorce rates and many single parent
families, there is great concern that marriage is a troubled, if not a dying, institution.
Civic and political worries over the seeming lack of commitment to the norm of marriage
have resulted in a multiplicity of interventions aimed at strengthening this beleaguered
institution. In various states, these policies have taken the form of the introduction of
covenant marriage, free marriage preparation courses, particularly for lower-income
couples, and relationship skills-based courses in high schools. This study takes the last of
these interventions as its focus. In doing so, it allows for questions to be asked about the
nature of teens’ relationship skills and attitudes, chiefly in connection to their natal family
structure, and about the capacity of our schools to mold these views and abilities.
This project is conducted in Florida as this state has stood out amongst others in
its commitment to the provision of relationship education in high schools. In 1998,
Florida’s then-Governor Jeb Bush signed the Marriage Preparation and Preservation Act
into law. Among other measures to promote marriage, this act mandated that all high
school students successfully complete a relationship skills course before graduating.
Because this study was conducted prior to the abolition of this requirement in 2007, it
offers a unique view of the potential impact of a mandatory, statewide relationship
education program.
Data is collected from Family and Consumer Science classes that incorporate
relationship education in two urban high schools in northern Florida. These classes
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Convention