Risking the Future Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing, Volume II Working Papers only (1987) / Chapter Skim
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2. Adolescent Sexual Behavior as It Relates to Other Transition Behaviors in Youth
2. Adolescent Sexual Behavior as It Relates to Other Transition Behaviors in Youth
Pages 36-55
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From page 36... ...
Adolescent sexuality and other adolescent behaviors share certain common features. Adolescence is a developmental period in which an individual changes (over a varying length of tme)
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From page 37... ...
The issue, then, for adolescent sexual intercourse is the appropriate timing for the initiation of this activity. This is also the case with some of the other transition behaviors although it is less so.
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From page 38... ...
The examination, then, of adolescent sexuality with other adolescent behaviors seems appropriate. F irst, ~ will review some of the theoretical perspectives that have been used to consider these behaviors.
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From page 39... ...
. Social Control Theory A theoretical framework that has some similarity to the Jes~ors' problem~behavior theory in its focus on conforming and conventional behavior and the psychosoc ial context is H irschi ' s sac ial control theory.
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From page 40... ...
Both the research in the proble~n-behavior framework and the social control f ramework show involvement in conventional activities, parental involvement, and conventional values to be negatively related to adolescent problem or deviant behaviors. Critics of the social control perspective have pointed out that it implicitly assumes that the Strength of one' s social bonds are not influenced by gender, social class, race or other status placements (xornhauser, 19781.
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From page 41... ...
Developmental Perspective Adolescent behaviors, especially sexual behavior, are often considered within a developmental perspective. This perspective sees adolescent experience as resulting from the integration of early infant and childhood experiences with an increased expectation of more orderly, rationalized and socially responsible behavior.
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From page 42... ...
suggest that drinking, marijuana use, delinquent behavior, and sexual intercourse may constitute a ~syndrome. of problem behavior in adolescence; they have focused on a broad array of adolescent behaviors rather than on a single outcome.
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From page 43... ...
The survey collected data on sexual behavior, measured as the family, peer group, school adjustment, political attitudes, career and marr iage aspirations, adolescent lifestyles and self-reported delinquent activities. One question addressed was the relationship of sexual intercourse to other behaviors.
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From page 44... ...
Others included elementary school failure, behavior problems in elementary school, dropping out of school before high school graduation, juvenile arrest record, having drunk alcohol before the age of 15, and bee haviors commencing before the age of 18 including marijuana, barb~tuate, amphetamine, or opiate use, leaving home, Parr iage, and developing alcohol problems. The first four came frown official records and the others were based on retrospective reports.
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From page 45... ...
The f inding then that teenage sexual intercourse, substance use, and delinquency are interrelated has been found among a var iety of study populations in studies conducted over a span of several decades. Delinquency, Alcohol and Drug Use Studies Researchers with a focus on one of the transition behaviors, such as delinquency or substance use, have often included its association with one or more of the other behaviors.
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From page 46... ...
Sexual bee havior was more strongly correlated with alcohol, tobacco, pain killers and marijuana use than were any of the other IS adolescent behavior=. The other adolescent behaviors that were positively related to drug use were general delinquency, school misbehavior, and adolescent social behavior {visiting a friend's home, going to a party, other social events, etc.~.
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From page 47... ...
The author concluded that while certain health behaviors occurred together, in general, the results showed that a person behaving unhealthfully in one area does not necessarily act in a way that might harm or endanger health in all areas. Zabin ( 1984 ~ recently examined the relationship of smoking to sexual behavior among 1200 female adolescents attending 32 contraceptive clinics in the U.S.
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From page 48... ...
The work of Zucker and colleagues found that adolescent sexual behavior is related to drinking; their work on heavy drinking among college females suggests that not only is heavy drinking related to more sexual activity, it i. also related to less contracep~ tive use.
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From page 49... ...
Unfortunately, studies often include only males or only females. For example, many studies of delinquency have only male subjects (see Ha rris 1971} while many studies of adolescent sexual behavior only include females ~ see Chilman 1978)
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From page 50... ...
While females raised on the kibbutz had similar rates of premarital sexual intercourse as kibbutz and non-kibbutz males, their pattern of sexual behavior was more similar to the conk ibLutz f emales ~ who had much lower rates of sexual experience) than to the males.
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From page 51... ...
However, parental social class may inf luence adolescent sexual behavior through its effect on aspirations -- adolescents f rom lower class backgrounds have lower educational aspirations and adolescents with lower education aspirations are more likely to be sexually active.
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From page 52... ...
They found that social origins were not related to teenage sexual behavior, but that anticipated social class was for both males and females. Hogan and Kitagawa (1983)
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From page 53... ...
The function of these behaviors for the individual have not been adequately conceptualized either. While problem behavior theory suggests that adolescent sexual behavior, substance use and delinquency may be attempts by adolescents to assert their independence, few investigators have attempted to differentiate those adolescents whose involvements in these behaviors endanger their successful completion
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From page 54... ...
Clearly more work is needed in this area to better understand these interrelationships. Additional study of these interrelationships should further our understanding of early sexual behavior of adolescents and whether dif ferent adolescent bee haviors, including early sexual activity, may be serving similar psycholog ical and sac ial functions.
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From page 55... ...
These types of prevention/inter~rention efforts would have theoretical as well as practical significance and could be used to test whether different adolescent behaviors stem from the same social and psychological causes. We still have much to learn about how these adolescent behaviors interrelate and what functions they serve in adolescent development.
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