Factors affecting perception of pregnancy risk in the adolescent

Perception of pregnancy risk, fertility knowledge, and probability-based teaching examples of risk were assessed in 104 primiparous urban adolescents 13–18 years of age in their second and third trimester of pregnancy. Perception of risk was not associated with age, actual frequency of intercourse, or level of fertility knowledge. Sexually active adolescents were surprised at subsequent conceptions. Adolescents were unable to utilize concepts of risk taking, even after concrete examples and teaching techniques had been presented.This study was conducted under the auspices of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Baylor College of Medicine, which provides medical faculty to the Harris County Hospital District, Houston, Texas.Received Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Current interests are patterns of adolescent child bearing and rearing.Received M.P.H. from the University of Texas School of Public Health. Current interests are adolescent contraceptive behavior.Received D.P.H. from the University of Texas School of Public Health. Current interests are biological psychiatry and socio-medical research.Received M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. Current interests are continuing education in medical and nonmedical settings.     

Gender and developmental differences in adolescents' conceptions of moral reasoning

Eighth graders, 11th graders, and college sophomores wrote open-ended essays that characterized their own approaches to moral reasoning. Their essays were scored for the presence of various themes. Students also responded to three dilemmas from the Defining Issues Test (Rest, 1979). Students then rated their own use of justice and care orientations in moral reasoning, using a previously developed instrument (Ford and Lowery, 1986; Lyons, 1983). Characterizations of moral reasoning became more multifaceted and thorough with grade, and correlated with many traditional measures of moral reasoning. Males and females showed some, but relatively few, differences in characterizing their own moral reasoning, although females tended to respond more thoroughly to the open-ended task. Gender differences, when they occurred, were mostly found on measures that assessed so-called feminine issues or concerns, but not on traditional measures of moral reasoning. Characterizations of moral reasoning clustered into five dimensions, raising questions about the utility of the constructs of justice and care orientations.The first and third authors received financial support from a Ford-Mellon grant made to Carleton College. Results of this study were presented at the 1990 meeting of the Society for Research in Adolescence.Received Ph.D. in Psychology and M.S.E. in Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and has research interests in the development of reasoning skills, decision making, and conceptual development.Received Ph.D. in Counseling and Guidance from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and has research interests in adolescent development and adolescent psychopathology.Received B.A. in Psychology from Carleton College in 1990. Has interests in adolescence and chemical dependence.     

Comparison of adolescents' perceptions and behaviors in single- and two-parent families

This study investigated the self-concepts, school achievement, occupational aspirations, vocational maturity, and perceptions of parents of children from two-parent and single-parent homes. The sample contained 559 children, 19% from single-parent homes. A multivariateF indicated children from two-parent homes had significantly higher school grades and occupational aspirations. There were also significant differences in children's perceptions of relationships with fathers, but not with mothers. It was argued that family structure has an impact on adolescents' perceptions and behaviors.Received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Current research interests include the impact of family structure on the family and related issues.Received his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University. Current research interests include family research.     

Identity in adolescence: Influences of dysfunction and psychosocial task issues

The Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (EPSI) was utilized in two studies to investigate task resolutions (trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity) in adolescence. In the first study, a comparison of delinquents and non-delinquents indicated that delinquents have less successful task resolutions. In the second study, a comparison of adolescents with high and low dysfunctional attitudes again revealed that troubled adolescents have less successful task resolutions. In this study, 7th graders, 12th graders, first-year college students, and junior and senior college students participated. Older adolescents demonstrated more successful task resolutions than younger adolescents, and different identity issues were salient during early adolescence as compared to later adolescence. Also, first-year college students had more problems with identity consolidation and less positive overall task resolutions than high school seniors or college juniors and seniors. A life-context approach to identity formation is discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the first biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Madison, Wisconsin, March 1986, and at the Midwestern Psychological Association meetings, Chicago, Illinois, 1987 and 1989.M.A. degree in psychology from University of Toledo. Research interests: identity development, cognitive and perceptual development.Ph.D. from University of Toledo. Research interests: personality and cognitive development in adolescence, infant cognitive development.     

Gender issues in the interface of family experience and adolescents' friendship and dating identity

This study focuses on the role of family experience in adolescents' conception of the self in the context of friendship and dating relationships. Three issues are addressed: the extent of sex differences in adolescents' friendship and dating identity, how links between family experience and friendship and dating identity might differ for males and females, and whether mothers and fathers play distinctive roles in such development. A sample of Caucasian two-parent families, each including an adolescent who was a high school senior, was observed in a family interaction task designed to elicit the expression and coordination of a variety of points of view. Each adolescent was also given an interview assessing exploration and commitment in friendship and dating identity. Only one sex difference was found in identity, with females more committed in their conceptions of dating relationships than males. The key finding of the study concerns the distinctive patterns of family interaction associated with friendship and dating identity. For females, separateness in family interaction was related to their friendship identity exploration, whereas for males, the links between family interaction and exploration all involved connectedness. The different contingencies may reflect the interplay between different societal patterns of support and restriction of males' and females' exploration.This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-92819 and HD-17983) and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and from the University Research Institute and the Institute of Human Development and Family Studies of the University of Texas at Austin.Received her Ph.D. in child psychology from the University of Minnesota. Research interests include the role of family and peer relationships in the development of individual and relational competence, and the interface of family, peer, and school contexts in the development of children and adolescents.Received his Ph.D. in child psychology from the University of Minnesota. Research interests include the role of the family in adolescent personality development and identity formation, career development, and adoptive family relationships.     

nature,nurture and nation: Nísia Floresta's engagement in the breast-feeding debate in Brazil and France

This article looks at the way the Brazilian writer and educator Nísia Floresta addresses issues of race and class within her construction of nationhood. This is achieved through a consideration of the specific subject of maternal breast-feeding as discussed by Floresta in two texts, written in Brazil and France, respectively. A comparison of these works reveals a very different engagement with race and class factors in determining women's claim to citizenship. Floresta, in common with early 19th-century European feminism, believed this claim to lie within the domestic sphere, primarily in the role of mother and educator. The article considers how, as a vital aspect of that role, she portrays maternal breast-feeding as both natural and patriotic. It also highlights the extent to which Floresta was influenced by the prevailing concerns of her contemporaries regarding the risks of wet nursing and the threat posed by household slaves, before going on to consider how this discourse leads Floresta to exclude black slave women from her vision of patriotic motherhood, while acknowledging the maternity of women of all classes in a European context. Patriotic concerns, shaped by racial prejudices, overshadow Floresta's feminism, prohibiting the kind of unifying discourse of motherhood, which she claimed to profess.     

Parents' and teachers' beliefs about adolescents: Effects of sex and experience

Three studies examine beliefs that parents and teachers have about adolescents. A distinction is made between category-based beliefs (concerning adolescents as a group) and target-based beliefs (concerning individual adoles cents). In Study 1, 90 late elementary and junior high school teachers indicated degree of agreement with a set of category-based statements about adolescents. Parents of early adolescents in Study 2 (N=1272) responded to category- and target-based statements. Study 3 compares the responses of teachers in Study 1 and parents in Study 2. Both teachers and parents endorsed beliefs that adolescence is difficult, and that adults can have an impact. Compared to fathers, mothers believed more in difficulty and in the negative effects of biological change on behavior. Parents of daughters believed adolescence is more difficult than parents of sons. Among teachers, amount of experience with adolescents was positively associated with the belief that adolescence is a difficult period of life. For parents, the effect of amount of experience was mixed. Experience had a greater impact on the category-based beliefs of teachers than parents. Possible influences on the origins and modification of beliefs are discussed.Received Ph.D. in psychology from The University of Michigan. Research interests: adolescent development, effects of pubertal development on social development, hormones and behavior in early adolescence, and family processesCurrently on leave from The University of Michigan. Received Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles. Research interests: development of self-concept, subjective task value, interests, and activity preferences, especially during early and middle adolescence. Dr. Eccles is also investigating the impact of school and family experiences on these constructs.Received Ph.D. in psychology from The University of Michigan. Research interests: the impact 6f family stress on adolescent development and family decision-making practices.Received Ph.D. in educatiqn from The University of Michigan. Research interests: adolescent development, middle years education, teacher beliefs, and classroom processes.Received M. A. in education from the University of Michigan. Research interests: adolescent development, classroom environments, and supporting beginning teachers.Received Ph.D. in social work and psychology from The University of Michigan. Research interests: family processes and development.Portions of this paper were presented at the 1987 biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development. This research was made possible by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH31724-04, -05) to Jacquelynne S. Eccles, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD17296-01, -02, -03,S1) to Jacquelynne S. Eccles.     

Green grabbing and the dynamics of local-level engagement with neoliberalization in Tanzania's wildlife management areas

This paper analyzes the politics and struggles ongoing within wildlife management areas (WMAs) in Tanzania to discuss the dynamics of neoliberalization of the wildlife sector. We discuss neoliberalization as a new political-economic context within which the ongoing politics of natural resource management are played out, and focus on green grabbing as an expression of these politics. We discuss how local-level actors are engaged in these processes, often in strategic ways, to negotiate their roles within WMAs and address green grabbing by the state. Secondly, we discuss an example of the politics of land control and local-level actors’ enactment of accumulation by dispossession within a WMA.     

‘Fade to Grey’: Older women,embodied claims and attributions in English university departments of education

This article explores the experiences of a small number of older women who work in university departments of education. The article starts with a brief review of some of the research that documents the experiences of women who work in departments of education. The article then considers the ways in which the older woman's body has become a focus for action, suppression and, above all, a site for constant work. Women are exhorted by the mass media to be vigilant in order to combat the embodied signs of passing time and to work on the project of the (ageing) body. The article then explores some of the ways that older women in education departments may be positioned/position themselves in relation to these pressures and some of the ways in which they disrupt these discourses.     

rethinking the boundaries: towards a Butlerian ethics of vulnerability in sex trafficking debates

Feminist debates on sex trafficking have become entrenched and polarised, with abolitionists producing images of helpless abused victims, while sex worker advocates work hard to achieve some recognition of the agency of migrant sex workers. This article explores constructions of embodiment, subjectivity and agency in the debate, showing how abolitionist views, in spite of their efforts to challenge liberal pro-sex perspectives, rely on a familiar vision of the body as a singular, bounded and sovereign entity whose borders must be secured against invasion. The result is a vision in which victimisation is taken to epistemically compromise the subjectivities of sex workers, forcing them and their advocates to argue for recognition of their agency according to familiar liberal models of consent in order to be able to enter the debate. Drawing on the recent work of Judith Butler on consent and vulnerability, this article argues that what is needed is a rethinking of bodily ontology so that the vulnerability of sex workers is not opposed to their agency, but rather seen as an inevitable aspect of embodied sociality, constituting a call to ethical engagement and a recognition of the inequitable global distributions of precarity that produce sex trafficking as part of contemporary geopolitics. From this perspective, the alignment between radical feminist efforts to secure women’s bodily borders and global efforts to secure national borders no longer appears as coincidence.     

Male adolescent birth control behavior: The importance of developmental factors and sex differences

A survey of sex and birth control behavior of 51 male adolescents aged 15–17 was conducted utilizing a structured interview protocol. The purpose of the study was to describe male adolescent birth control behavior incorporating developmental issues, and to interpret the findings in light of what is known about female birth control behavior. Based on research with teenage females, three social influences were examined for their possible impact on male birth control behavior. A new operational definition ofmale effective birth control usage involving the effectiveness of the method and the consistency of its usage was developed. Findings similar to those obtained from research on females suggest that adolescent sexual partners may be the only direct social influence on adolescents' birth control usage. Results indicating differences from research with females suggest that in general: male birth control behavior is primarily self-oriented, males are more likely to be effective contraceptors with casual partners than with girl friends, males are more likely to communicate about sex and birth control with similar age peers than with family members and/or other adults, and that teen males view sex and birth control decisions as female decisions.He also conducts private psychotherapy, specializing in marital and family therapy. His doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania is from a unique joint program in marital/family therapy and sex education. His interests include sex roles and their impact on intimate relationships, adolescent development, and male sexuality. This article is based on his doctoral dissertation.faculty member in the Human Sexuality Program. Dr. Rose served as supervisor on Dr. Cohen's doctoral dissertation.