Ecological factors predicting adolescent contraceptive use: Implications for intervention

Protecting Our Daughters: Intersection of Race, Class and Gender in African American Mothers’ Socialization of Their Daughters’ Heterosexuality

“…Warren (1992) suggests that the conveyance of family norms involves a few direct verbal messages, a lot of indirect verbal messages and a host of nonverbal messages. Studies on adolescent sexual behavior have examined the direct instruction of mothers and have found open, receptive, comfortable parent-child communication, both general and sexual to be related to less sexual experience and less risky sexual behavior among adolescents (Dutra et al 1999;East 1996;Fisher 1987;Handelsman et al 1987;Kastner 1984;Miller et al 1999). African American mothers who communicate with their daughters about sex, have daughters who endorse less risky sexual behaviors (e.g., Hutchinson et al 2003), including more responsible sexual behavior, less sexual experience, and increased contraceptive use (Crosby et al 2001;Kotchick et al 1999;Whitaker and Miller 2000).…”

The social context for risky sexual behavior among adolescents

“…Many studies of parental influences on adolescent sexual behavior have focused narrowly on the communications about sex that do or do not occur between parents and children. The limited parental influences found in these studies may be due to infrequent parent-child communication about sexuality and sexual behavior (BrooksGunn and Furstenberg, 1989;Fox, 1980;Hofferth and Hayes, 1987;Kastner, 1984). Studies of peer influences have typically focused on the influence of the sexual activity of peers on an adolescent's sexual behavior.…”

To know that we know what we know: perceived knowledge and adolescent sexual risk behavior

“…One study of 152 high school students found a weakly negative, but significant correlation (Ϫ0.21) between sexual intercourse and perceived knowledge about AIDS, as assessed by the question "How knowledgeable do you believe you are about AIDS?" 28 In a second study, 14 perceived amount learned about five sexually related subjects appeared to contribute a significant, but small amount to the prediction of contraceptive regularity. A third study 29 examined the relationship between perceived and actual knowledge about condom use, finding that perception of knowledge about condom use was not related to actual knowledge, but did not examine the relationship between perceived knowledge and sexual behavior.…”

“…In fact, numerous studies, both cross-sectional and longitudinal, have suggested that the definition of the situation, in the form of self-perceptions or self-assessments, correlates with adolescent sexual behavior. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] One area that has been well-studied as an antecedent of adolescent sexual behavior is knowledge about sexuality, contraception, and STIs. Commonly, objective tests of knowledge are given to adolescents, generally in survey format, and are scored; subsequently, relationships between level of knowledge and involvement in sexual risk behaviors are analyzed.…”

“…Consistent across these studies is the inconsistent relationship between knowledge and behavior. 8,[13][14][15][16][18][19][20] This has been shown from a programmatic standpoint as well; programs focusing on objective knowledge acquisition as their only intervention strategy do not affect adolescent sexual risk behavior. [21][22][23] It is possible that the lack of consistent findings regarding knowledge as a protective antecedent is because traditionally, studies have focused exclusively on objective, or externally assessed knowledge.…”