[Current status of sex education of preschool children]

The quantity of empirical data on contents and sources of sexual knowledge and sex-typical attitudes at preschool children is out of all proportion to the importance of this age for the formation of sexual behaviour and the establishment of relations between the sexes in family and society in the course of ontogenesis. The results of standardized interviews of 190 boys and 176 girls aged four to seven years at urban and rural nursery schools on their sexual knowledge and on their ideas of properties, roles and functions of the sexes (sex role ideas) will help fill this gap. Compared to previous retrospective studies on elder children and adolescents, sexual knowledge has become more wide-spread and correct and increasingly comes from the desired sources of information. The emotional and educational factors involved in impairing the information, however, are not yet sufficiently developed and the incidence of attitudes promoting an equal cooperation between the sexes is rather limited. The necessity of enabling the educators for sexual education is again emphasized.