Teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S. are among the highest in the world for industrialized countries. The generally accepted reason is not that American teenagers are more sexually active but that they contracept less than do teenagers in other industrialized countries. This dissertation reports on a study that was undertaken for two purposes. One purpose was to develop and test two models of contraceptive choice among American teenagers: a "likelihood-of-use" model to predict the likelihood of sexually active teenagers' using contraception, and a "medical-or-nonmedical" model to predict whether teenagers who use contraception are likely to use medical or nonmedical methods. The second purpose was to explore the level of support for the two models among black and white teenagers separately. The theoretical underpinning of the models is value-expectancy theory. The models' exogenous variables are based on the prevailing strategy for preventing teenage pregnancy among American teenagers, a strategy initially advocated by Joy G. Dryfoos. The strategy involves the use of access-to-contraception programs, educational programs, and life options programs. The data used in the study were on 449 subjects drawn from the 1979 National Survey of Young Women, a probability-sample survey of women in the U.S. aged 15-19. The subjects were those survey respondents who were black or white, sexually active, never married, and never pregnant. The statistical technique used in the study was logistic regression. Test results supported three of four hypotheses constituting the medical-or-nonmedical model and two of seven hypotheses constituting the likelihood-of-use model. The results for each model offered support for using two of the three programs constituting the prevailing pregnancy-prevention strategy: access-to-contraception programs and educational programs. Exploration of the level of support for each of the two models among black and white teenagers indicated that support for each model differed between the two groups of teenagers.

Why should a teacher who has not worked with senior high girls be concerned about these adolescents and their problems? There are two possible answers to this question. First, the teacher must have an understanding of the behavior patterns and characteristics of this specific age to have a reasonable amount of success for the year. And the second reason is that many adults have an inconsiderate attitude toward adolescents. These adolescents may be having difficulty in making an adjustment from the role of a child to that of the adult. Therefore, it is indeed necessary that the classroom teacher study adolescent psychology so that she will be less inept, less negligent, and inconsiderate in her relationship with the students she encourages or influences whether in the classroom or throughout the day's activities. / Typescript. / "August, 1956." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Sarah Lou Hammond, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 52).

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in (Community Psychology) in the Department of Psychology, University of Zululand, South Africa, 2012. / The aim of this study was to evaluate a group clay therapy programme that was conducted among teenage girls who have suffered sexual abuse in the rural district of the Free State Province in South Africa. The strength of this programme lies in the fact that it is a group therapy programme, therefore is able to reach a number of subjects at the same time, as opposed to individual consultation, which is a common approach in psychological interventions. Literature shows that the incidence of sexual abuse among young girls is alarmingly high (National Department of Social Welfare, 2004; Bolen, 2001; Conradie & Tanfa, 2005). While government and non-profit organizations try their best to fight this crime, health care delivery is lagging behind. Pillay and Lockhart (1997), identified the shortage of psychologists as one of the reasons for poor delivery of mental health care services to children. Bolen (2001), states that child sexual abuse invades the inner being of a child, and may result in psychopathology, if not treated early. This is of concern to everybody including the government hence a solution is sought in many different forms. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design. A sample of forty (40) adolescent girls who are survivors of sexual abuse was selected. They were divided into two groups; twenty (20) formed the experimental group, and the other twenty (20) the control group. The experimental group received clay therapy whilst the control group underwent a routine intervention programme that is offered by the health clinic for survivors of sexual abuse. At the end, both groups were evaluated in order to check the difference with regard to their response to these treatments. A higher positive response was observed in the experimental group. This was an indication of the effectiveness of clay therapy. Clay therapy was given for eight sessions. This is taken as brief therapeutic intervention. It therefore minimises time spent in health care facilities. Brief therapies are more effective and helpful with clients of low socio-economic status, simply because some of them lack funds for daily trips to see the therapists, who are usually located in urban areas. The subjects for this research were all from a rural area. Individuals who have suffered traumatic experiences such as sexual abuse, usually find it difficult to express themselves in words because they usually get overwhelmed with emotions. Children also lack vocabulary to express their innermost feelings. Body-based therapies such as clay therapy, are usually successful in accessing thoughts, feelings, and bodily experiences which are all intimately related. Clay therapy is therefore recommended as a therapeutic modality of choice when working with traumatised individuals.A South Africa is made up of nine provinces and the provinces are further divided into districts. v Through poverty, politics, e.g. forced removals, faction fights, etc., and societal factors such as the migrant labour system, marriages and others, people have migrated from their places of origin, so that one finds mixed cultural groups all over the country. A therapeutic modality that reaches a number of clients of different backgrounds at the same time is more relevant. The clay therapy modality reflected no language barriers; all the girls grasped the activities well, even though they were from different cultural groups. Playing with clay is culture friendly, because no level of education is needed to master the art of playing. This makes clay therapy much easier to integrate into child therapies. Confidentiality is also maintained in such therapy because the subjects do not have to talk about their feelings in the group if they do not want to, but they get a chance to interact with people who are of the same age, who have experienced the same trauma as theirs.

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Three groups of adolescent girls ages 15-18 were compared regarding recent life stresses. Group I consisted of 50 girls pregnant for the first time. Group II consisted of 50 girls who never had been pregnant but were sexually experienced (defined as having engaged in sexual intercourse). Group III consisted of 50 girls who never engaged in sexual intercourse. All three groups were asked nine questions of demographic information and were administered the Recent Life Events Questionnaire. Subjects were asked to rate from 1-5 each event that had happened to them: for Group III the year before testing, for Group II the year before first engaging in sexual intercourse, and for Group I (who took the RLEQ twice) both the year before first intercourse and the year before first pregnancy. Results suggested that rating of events did not discriminate between groups, but the number of actual events that had occurred in their lives did. Significant differences also were noted among the three groups regarding adopted versus nonadopted status and the combined abuse index (index reflecting numbers of subjects who had been victims of either child abuse or sexual abuse at home). More girls in the pregnant group reported being adopted and being victims of abuse than would be expected in the general population. The study suggests a profile of girls at risk for adolescent pregnancy from stresses in their lives and without regard to their sexual behavior.

This study was designed to examine the relationship of adolescent females' career choices to locus of control, perceptions of femininity, socioeconomic status, race, mother's occupation and developmental stage, The participants in this study were 230 eighth grade girls and 130 twelfth grade girls from a densely populated, urban-suburban area which was predominantly white middle class. Four instruments were used to collect data. These included the Career Choice Form, designed by the researcher to gather information about participants' career choices, and the Personal Data Questionnaire, developed for collecting information about socioeconomic status, race, mother's occupation and developmental stage. Rotter's Internal-External Scale and Spence and Helmreich's Attitudes toward Women Scale were used respectively to obtain measures of locus of control and perceptions of femininity. Data was collected in May, 1980, Students met with the researcher in large groups and completed all four instruments during one-hour periods. In this study career choices were described as traditional (30 percent or more of all employed workers in a particular occupation are female) or nontraditional (less than 30 percent of all employed workers in a particular occupation are female). The frequency and percentage of traditional and nontraditional career choices found among students in various subpopulations (i.e., 8th graders; 12th graders; whites; minorities; high, medium and low SES groups; respondents with mothers in traditional careers and respondents with mothers in nontraditional careers) were reported. Mean scores on the I-E Scale and the Attitudes toward Women Scale were also computed for traditional and nontraditional career choosers. Multiple regression procedures were used to analyze the data: respondents' career choice was the dependent variable and the independent variables included students' I-E score, AWS score, socioeconomic status classification (high, medium or low), race (white or minority), mother's occupation and grade level (measure for developmental stage). Multiple regression procedures were chosen for analyzing the data as this provided a method for studying the relationship of career choices to each of the independent variables while controlling for the effects of the other independent variables. The data collected in this study revealed that nontraditional career choices increased as socioeconomic status increased. Nontraditional career choices were also more prevalent among 12th graders than among 8th graders. Results of the multiple regression analysis indicated that a significant relationship existed between adolescent females' career choice and socioeconomic status and developmental stage. Locus of control, perceptions of femininity, race and mother's occupation were not found to be significantly related to adolescent females' career choices. / Ed. D.

The majority of research dealing with the eating disorder of bulimia has focused on characteristics of college-aged women, with those findings forming a basis for treatment planning with younger, adolescent women. While research in recent years has begun to examine those characteristics specifically related to bulimia in adolescence, there has been a relative lack of consideration of the effect of the developmental stage of the individual on these psychological characteristics. Such differential characteristics, if found to be present, would have implications for both the prevention and treatment of bulimia in younger populations. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the concerns of high school and college females at high risk for bulimia at different developmental levels as well as to identify the psychological characteristics of high risk subjects across the age groups. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires assessing their self-perceptions on a variety of intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions. Individuals aged 12-14 who were also at high risk for bulimia reported greater levels of depression and more feelings of inefficacy than did older, high risk individuals. Across all ages, women at high risk for bulimia were more dissatisfied with their body shape, were more depressed, experienced more difficulty with peer and family relationships, and felt more alienated from others than did individuals at low risk for bulimia. These results were discussed within a developmental framework, and it was suggested that individuals who cannot come to terms with the multiple changes of adolescence are at increased risk for engaging in bulimic behavior. / Ph. D.