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 looked at how cholesterol levels of students, ages 11-15, who participated in the NSLP and the SBP would be affected compared with those students who only participated in the NSLP. Fasting blood samples (lOmL) were analyzed from 15 students who ate lunch only (L) and 15 students who ate both breakfast and lunch (BL) from the Driver Middle School food service at least 3 times a week. Blood was analyzed for changes in total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, and Triglycerides from baseline to 4 months. Results showed a significant decrease in total cholesterol and LDL, and a significant increase in triglycerides from baseline to 4 months in both the L group and the BL group. This may be attributable to hormone levels during sexual maturation in prepubescent and pubescent students. / Department of Family and Consumer Sciences

This study explores and describes adolescent females' experience of disclosure of sexual abuse. The goal of this study was to provide insights and theory into the experience of sexual abuse victims involved in the disclosure of that abuse.

In this dissertation, I bring together film theory, literary criticism, anthropology and psychology to develop a paradigm for the study of teen films that can also be effectively applied to other areas of pop culture studies as well as literary genres. Expanding on Thomas Doherty's discussion of 1950s teen films and Ian Jarvie's study of films as social criticism, I argue that teen films are a discrete genre that appeals to adolescents to the exclusion of other groups. Teen films subvert social mores of the adult world and validate adolescent subculture by reflecting that subculture's values and viewpoints. The locus of this subversion is the means by which teenagers, through the teen films, vicariously experience anxiety-provoking adult subjects such as sexual experimentation and physical violence, particularly the extreme expressions of sex and violence that society labels taboo. Through analyzing the rhetoric of teen lifestyle films, specifically the teen romance and sex farce, I explore how the films offer teens vicarious experience of many adolescent "firsts." In addition, I claim that teen films can effectively appropriate other genres while remaining identifiable as teen films. I discuss hybrid films which combine the teen film with the science fiction genre, specifically Back to the Future and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and the musical genre, specifically Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Dirty Dancing. In my discussion of the slasher film, specifically the Halloween. Friday the 13th. and A Nightmare on Elm Street cycles, I highlight how teen films function as a safe place to explore the taboo. Finally, I discuss the way in which the teen film genre has evolved in the 1990s due in part to shifts in social and economic interests. The teen films of the 1990s include the viewpoints of women, minorities, the handicapped, and homosexuals and question the materialistic ethos of the 1980s films.

The purpose of these studies was to examine the predictors of African American and European American adolescents’ attitudes toward affirmative action (Study 1) and school desegregation (Study 2) policies. It was hypothesized that support for both policies would be higher among adolescents who (1) attended more racially diverse classes, (2) held less prejudiced racial attitudes, (3) were more aware of historical and continuing racial inequality and discrimination, (4) described themselves as politically liberal, and (5) had engaged in more racial identity exploration. Participants in both studies included African American and European American adolescents ages 14 to 17 attending a high school in the Midwestern U.S. On the first day of data collection in both studies, adolescents completed assessments of the hypothesized predictor variables in the context of their high school social studies classrooms. On the second day of data collection, adolescents learned about either an affirmative action (Study 1) or a school desegregation (Study 2) policy that had been proposed for their school. Immediately following the policy presentations, adolescents reported their opinions of the policy in open-ended and forced-choice formats. Across studies, results indicated that African American and European American adolescents often held significantly different views of race, racism, and race-related policies. In general, African American adolescents were more aware of racial discrimination, endorsed more positive views about African Americans, and were more supportive of affirmative action and school desegregation policies than European American adolescents. Predictors of individuals’ views of race-related policies also varied by participant race. Among African American adolescents, higher awareness of interracial disparities and discrimination predicted stronger support of affirmative action and school desegregation. Among European American adolescents, in contrast, higher awareness of interracial disparities and discrimination predicted weaker support of affirmative action and school desegregation. More work is needed to examine the origins of differences between African American and European American adolescents’ understanding of, and beliefs about, race in society. / text

Not available / text

Both educators and parents are concerned with how best to shape sexual development because of the myriad personal and social complications that can occur for adolescents along with becoming sexually active. Many variables have been shown individually to influence sexuality. Of specific interest in this study was parent-adolescent closeness and communication about sexuality. Past research has found parental communication about sexuality and parent-adolescent closeness individually to have a positive impact on adolescent sexuality. However, other studies have found no relation between parent-adolescent communication about sexuality and sexual outcomes. Still others have suggested that the combination of the two variables may have the most significant influence on adolescent sexuality. The main goal of this study was to see if a combination of parent-adolescent closeness and parental communication about sexuality was more strongly related to adolescent sexual knowledge, attidudes, and behaviors than either communication or closeness alone. Participants were 157 boys and girls in the ninth through twelfth grades from two suburban high schools in the midwest: Questionnaire measures of adolescents' perceptions were used. Canonical correlation analyses revealed two significant combinations of variables. First, age and maternal and paternal communication were significantly related to sexual behavior and sexual knowledge. Specifically, younger age and less maternal and paternal communication were related to less sexual behavior and less sexual knowledge. Second, gender, age, and maternal communication were significantly related to less sexual knowledge and more conservative sexual attitudes. Specifically, being younger and female and receiving less maternal communication was related to less sexual knowledge and more conservative attitudes. Four important findings are evident in these results. Implications for interpretation and future research are discussed. / Department of Educational Psychology

This study focused on influential factors affecting the career maturity attitudes of rural high school students with learning disabilities. A variety of variables were studied in each of the following areas: personal demographics, learning disability characteristics, ability/achievement levels, vocational preparation, and family characteristics. Variables from each of the clusters were entered into a variables selection program designed to depict the best combination of variables for use in a multiple regression equation. Through this process the twenty seven original variables were refined into a final combined pool of the eight most powerful variables which impacted upon the student's career maturity attitudes. The eight top contributors were entered into a multiple regression equation to determine their relative contributions to career maturity attitudes. Family appeared to play an important role in the career maturity attitudes of this sample as variables from the family cluster accounted for four of the eight variables selected for the final equation. Two of the those family variables were the family systems constructs of adaptability and cohesion, as measured by the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale (FACES II). To gain further insight regarding the impact of family dynamics on the functioning of students with learning disabilities, six stepwise multiple regression equations were also run, one for each scale of the Career Maturity Inventory-Attitude Scale. The results suggested a small but negative relationship exists between perceived family adaptability and career maturity attitudes. Students who perceived their families as less adaptable, or less flexible, tended to demonstrate higher career maturity attitudes. Cohesion, however, demonstrated a positive and stronger relationship, showing closer bonds among family members to be an important element supporting maturity in the student's career attitudes. / Ph. D.