Case Study - Michele Hamm - Irvine, CA

Personal Experience:
 
My name is Michele Hamm and I was born raised in Orange County, California. I live in a town called Irvine. There are four high schools in California and I went to the most high-income school. The other three schools are very old fashioned and Northwood (my high school) was only ten years old. Through the Irvine School District, as a student you are supposed to go through elementary school, middle school and high school with the same people. There are normally three schools that feed into each other and lead to another school. For me, my experience was very different. I didn’t end up going to the high school that I was supposed to feed into. Therefore, my sexual education was somewhat non-existent. At my middle school, Venado, as a seventh grader you were supposed to receive a very graphic and exclusive sex ed course. But for my class of students, they changed the grade of sex ed course to the eighth grade, so my class didn’t receive sex ed. For any other student that was going into high school, this would be no problem because they would receive sex ed in high school. For me, Northwood did not have a sex ed program, only a mandatory health class that had to be taken.

Since I did not receive a real sex ed course, I can only elaborate on the health course I took in high school. There were a variety of topics that we covered in the course. We barely spent a week on sexual education and spent more of our time on drug and alcohol abuse along with nutrition and anatomy. I don’t remember ever being handed a condom or how to protect myself if I decided to have sex. Although my sexual education experience was unique, I think most kids in Irvine were either very well educated or did not have sex, because I remember there being one actual pregnancy that took place in my high school. I can only speak for the more wealthier side of town, because I believe that the other schools in the town had more experience with teen pregnancy.

Population of Irvine (2010): 212,375 
Men: 101.485                        
Female: 108,231

Median resident age (2009): 33.1
California Median age (2009):  33.3

Middle Class Income (2009): 84,850

Ethnicity (2009):
White Asian Hispanic Black Other	45.1% 39.0% 9.2% 1.6% 5.1%
Education (2009): High School Graduates College Graduates	96% 65%

Religion:

Religious Group	Number of temples, mosques, churches, or synagogues	Number of adherents	% of total population	% of total adherents
Roman Catholic	61	779,647	27.4	61.2
Jewish	28	60,000	2.1	4.7
Mormon	115	48,776	1.7	3.8
Independent Charismatic	13	43,100	1.5	3.4
Muslim	16	39,583	1.4	3.1
Southern Baptist Convention	77	32,652	1.1	2.6
Presbyterian USA	38	25,740	0.9	2/td>
Assembly of God	71	21,918	0.7	1.7
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America	37	22,140	0.8	1.7
Missouri Synod Lutheran	30	19,073	0.7	1.5

Politics: Irvine, as being part of Orange County, is known for a a Republican county. Many people say this because of the high economic standing of the people who live in these places.

Pregnancy rates: More than 10% of teen births nationwide, numbering 50,000 in 2002, took place here in California.  And some 3,100 of these births occurred in Orange County. The teen pregnancy rates from 15-19, involved 65% pregnancies to 17-19 year olds and 35% to 15-17 year olds.

Teen Pregnancy Prevention: Anywhere around Irvine, aka Santa Ana and Los Angeles, you will find many planned parenthoods and other government run programs. But actually in Irvine I think we have one Planned Parenthood. This is because of the high economic standing of this city.



References:
http://www.cityofirvine.org/about/demographics.asp
http://www.city-data.com/city/Irvine-California.html