Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2012 / This study examined the relationship between parental monitoring and parent-adolescent communication, respectively, and sexual risk-taking behaviours. Participants consisted of 197 grade 11 and 12 learners at Bankuna High School and D. Z. J. Mthebule Secondary School in the Greater Tzaneen Municipality. The learners’ ages ranged from 15 years to 25 years. Sexual risk-taking behaviours was determined by assessing adolescents’ use of condoms, and drugs or alcohol, prior to sexual intercourse. The results indicated a statistically significant relationship between parental monitoring and the adolescents’ sexual risk-taking behaviours. However, no association was found between parent-adolescent communication and sexual risk-taking behaviours. Furthermore, the results showed that gender, socio-economic status, family structure and functioning did not play any significant role in the relationship between parental monitoring and parent-adolescent communication respectively, and sexual risk-taking behaviours.

The purpose of this cross-sectional and exploratory study was to describe an interaction model of parental and adolescent attributes and sexual communication influences on intentions for contraception and condom use in Mexican high school students between 14 and 17 years of age. This study utilized a secondary analysis of data from an existing experimental study. Concepts from the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Social Cognitive Theory, and the Ecodevelopmental Theory provided the contexts with which to guide this study. The study sample consisted of 756 adolescents and their parents. A SEM model building approach was used to guide the analyses. The model fit indices suggested that the sample data did not have an acceptable fit to the combined measurement model (X²[subscript (30)] = 92.215, p = 0.0000, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR= 0.04). Based on the correlation coefficients, the observed variables of parents' and adolescents' familialism and religiosity and adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use were excluded from the structural equation modeling analyses. Two alternative models were constructed form the original and both had an acceptable fit, but based on the theoretical background, one was selected (X²[subscript (15)] = 27.289, p = .0265, CFI = .99, TLI = .99, RMSEA = .03, SRMR = .02). The revised model parents' attributes (self-efficacy for sex communication and beliefs toward sex) showed a strong relationship (r = 0.80) with parents' sexual communication (communication about sex and comfort with sex communication). An additional moderately strong correlation was found between adolescents' sexual communication (communication about sex and comfort with sex communication) and parents' sexual communication (r = .31). Although the final model in this study did not explain the direct and mediator effects on adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use, findings add new information in relation to the phenomenon of parent-adolescent communication about sex in Mexico. Several conclusions were also drawn from the relationships among parents' attributes, adolescents' attributes, parents' sexual communication, adolescents' sexual communication, and adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use. Findings from this study are congruent with similar research and can be useful in developing intervention programs to prevent HIV/AIDS in Mexican adolescents.

Over the past two decades, communities across the nation have been mired in battles over sexuality, including gay rights, censorship, and sex education. Based on indepth interview data with 47 racially and economically diverse parents of teenagers, this study explores how parents make sense of and try to guide their children's sexuality in the midst of these hotly contested and politically charged debates. The findings highlight a paradox in parents' understandings of their children's sexuality: the parents interviewed for this study do not think of their own children as sexual subjects, even as they construct adolescents, in general, as highly sexual and sexualized. The author explores this paradox throughout the dissertation. She argues that parents' understandings reflect the complex interplay of myriad forces: these include the culture of sexual fear in the U.S.; dominant understandings of adolescence; gender, race, class, and sexual inequalities; and a pervasive American individualist ethos that situates the blame for any negative outcomes of teen sexuality on parents and their children. At the same time, however, these constructions often bolster social inequality. As the author shows, parents' understandings of adolescent sexuality, and their lessons to their children about sexuality, are not only shaped by, but also serve to legitimize, hierarchies and inequalities based on race, class, gender, sexuality, and age. The final chapter discusses the specific social and cultural conditions that might enable parents to think of their children as sexual subjects. / text

This study sought to investigate the relationship between perceived parental monitoring and adolescents' engagement in risky behaviour, in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. A total of 705 adolescents from both township and suburban schools in and around the city of Pietermaritzburg were involved in this study. Data collection took place during April and May of2002. Among the questions the study aimed to answer was whether there would be gender and school grade or age differences with regards to perceived parental monitoring, what the relationship would be between age, gender, perceived parental monitoring, level of religiosity, family structure, family conflict and attitudes towards condom use and, lastly, what the main predictors of engagement in risky behaviour would be. A survey which measured amongst other things, perceived parental monitoring, attitudes towards condom use, level of religiosity and the type of risky behaviours the adolescent might be involved in, was administered to the participants. Results showed perceived parental monitoring to be inversely correlated with involvement in risky behaviours and that, girls and the younger youth, were more monitored than boys and the older youth. Gender, level of religiosity, attitudes towards condom use, and age were identified by regression analysis as the four main predictors of engagement in risky behaviour. Longitudinal studies are needed to determine the long-term relationship between perceived parental monitoring and engagement in risky behaviour. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003. / National Research Foundation.

The importance of visual culture is emphasized in an emerging post-modernist society; besides, visual characteristics are regarded as an extremely important educational means in achieving various social, cultural, and educational goals. Through visual perception of environment humans experience various aesthetical emotions. The visual quality of environment reflects the spiritual culture of society, shapes aesthetically attractive cultural landscape, and cultivates traditions of environmental adjustment that create unique surroundings of our living place. The visual quality is objective and can be measured; but the aesthetical quality is a product of evaluation determined by cultural background and personal features. In the contemporary context of globalisation and multicultural trends, a rapidly changing environment requires from us not only a simple adaptation, but the maintenance of positive, creative, inseparable from aesthetical, relationship as well. Relationship between personality and the world begins from attitude that is an instrumental way of evaluation of environment and determines individual����s reaction to the environmental changes. Tenaciously cultivated relationships and attitudes towards the environment, the objects of art and the values they represent in due course develop into person’s value-oriented convictions that form the core of personality. The attitudes stabilization begins in adolescence, when their outlines, together with personal... [to full text]

The importance of visual culture is emphasized in an emerging post-modernist society; besides, visual characteristics are regarded as an extremely important educational means in achieving various social, cultural, and educational goals. Through visual perception of environment humans experience various aesthetical emotions. The visual quality of environment reflects the spiritual culture of society, shapes aesthetically attractive cultural landscape, and cultivates traditions of environmental adjustment that create unique surroundings of our living place. The visual quality is objective and can be measured; but the aesthetical quality is a product of evaluation determined by cultural background and personal features. In the contemporary context of globalisation and multicultural trends, a rapidly changing environment requires from us not only a simple adaptation, but the maintenance of positive, creative, inseparable from aesthetical, relationship as well. Relationship between personality and the world begins from attitude that is an instrumental way of evaluation of environment and determines individual’s reaction to the environmental changes. Tenaciously cultivated relationships and attitudes towards the environment, the objects of art and the values they represent in due course develop into person’s value-oriented convictions that form the core of personality. The attitudes stabilization begins in adolescence, when their outlines, together with personal self-actualization... [to full text]

Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva och analysera unga mammors tankar om sitt föräldraskap och hur det påverkar identitetsprocessen. Syftet är också att förstå vilket stöd de behöver i sin situation som unga föräldrar. Studien bygger på intervjuer med sex mammor som alla fött sitt första barn innan de fyllt 21 år. Intervjuerna har därefter analyserats med hjälp av teorier om identitet och stöd. Resultatet i denna studie visar på att trots att mammorna lever ett tillsynes välordnat och vanligt liv är det en grupp med unga mammor som också upplever en ensamhet och utanförskap. De är isolerade i hemmet där de har det största ansvaret för barn och hem. Barnets pappa står för försörjningen och detta bidrar till hans frånvaro från familjen. De unga mammorna har svårt att återgå till studier och de är begränsade i deras möjligeter att komma ut i arbetslivet. De begränsas också i sina möjligheter att utveckla sin identitet då de inte får möjlighet att vistas på andra arenor än i hemmet eller med sina barn. De unga mammorna har ett behov av stöd på flera olika plan. De är i behov av samhälleligt stöd för att få en chans att komma ut till arbete och i deras vardagliga liv är deras egna nätverk en viktig del för att den unga mamman ska få vardagen att fungera men de behöver också få tillgång till kontakter med jämnåriga utanför familjen och möta andra unga föräldrar i samma situation. / The aim of this study is to describe and analyze young mothers' thoughts on parenthood and how it affects their identity process. It is also to understand what support they need in their situation as young parents. The study is based on interviews with six mothers who all gave birth to their first child before they turned 21 years of age. The interviews have then been analyzed with the help of theories about identity and support. The results of this study show that despite the mothers living seemingly well-managed lives, they are a group of young mothers who experience loneliness and exclusion. They are isolated at home where they have the greatest responsibility for the children and the home. The child's father is responsible for supporting the mother and child which contributes to his absence from the family. These young mothers have difficulty in resuming studies and are limited in their possibilities to return to working life. They are also limited in their ability to develop their identity due to the fact that they are not able to reside in physical environments other than the home or with their children. The young mothers are in need of support on several different levels. They are in need of societal support in order to have a chance to go out to work, and their own network which is an important part of the young mother's everyday life helping them function on an everyday basis but in addition they also need access to contacts of the same age outside the family and to meet other young mothers in similar situations.

Zugl.: Köln, Fachhochsch., Diplomarbeit, 2007

Thesis (Psy.D.)--Wheaton College, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-49).

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-49).