Questions that apply to all articles

What risk factors seem to account for teens becoming sexually active at younger ages?

Based on your readings, how would you plan to reduce teen sexual activity at a local high school?

Bozick, R. (2006). Precocious Behaviors in Early Adolescence: Employment and the Transition to First Sexual Intercourse. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 26(1): 60–86.

This article explores the relationship between employment and first sexual intercourse in the early teen years. Past research has examined the influence of a wide range of social contexts on adolescent sexual behavior. Very few studies, however, consider the work-place. In this study, a series of Cox proportional hazard models predicting the risk of first sexual intercourse were estimated for a sample of eighth graders aged 12 to 14 from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (N = 10,704). Working more than 4 hr a week and holding an adult-type job is associated with an increased risk of engaging in sexual intercourse in early adolescence. These effects remain after controlling for sociodemographic variables, family and academic factors, and measures of age-graded development. The findings lend support to the precocious development hypothesis, which posits that taking on adult roles at an early age may speed up the onset of other adult behaviors.

• How does the precocious development hypothesis explain early sexual behavior for working teens?

Peter, J., Valkenburg, P. M. (2008). Adolescents' Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material, Sexual Uncertainty, and Attitudes Toward Uncommitted Sexual Exploration: Is There a Link? Communication Research. 35(5): 579-601

The link between adolescents' exposure to sexual media content and their sexual socialization has hardly been approached from an identity development framework. Moreover, existing research has largely ignored the role of adolescents' exposure to sexually explicit Internet material in that association. This study introduces two characteristics of adolescents' sexual self—sexual uncertainty and attitudes toward sexual exploration—and investigates these characteristics as potential correlates of adolescents' exposure to sexually explicit Internet material. Drawing from a sample of 2,343 Dutch adolescents aged 13 to 20, the authors find that more frequent exposure to sexually explicit Internet material is associated with greater sexual uncertainty and more positive attitudes toward uncommitted sexual exploration (i.e., sexual relations with casual partners/friends or with sexual partners in one-night stands). The findings call for more attention to adolescents' exposure to sexually explicit material on the Internet and identity-related issues.

• What would you tell your teen client about possible negative consequences for regularly viewing internet pornography?

Tsui-Sui, A. K., & Martyn, K. K. (2014). Comparing White and Asian Adolescents’ Perceived Parental Expectations and Their Sexual Behaviors Sage Open. 4(2): 1-16.

While parental influences on adolescent health behaviors are well recognized, there is limited understanding of the relationship between adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ expectations and their sexual behaviors. This mixed-methods study explored how White and Asian American adolescents perceive parental expectations via parent-child interactions, and how such expectations relate to adolescents’ self-reported sexual activities over time. Using gender-matched, in-depth interviews with 28 White and Asian American adolescents, ages 17 to 19, we explored adolescents’ perceptions of parental expectations about when, how, and under what conditions adolescents should engage in sexual activity. Stronger conservative parental sexual expectations and disapproving parental attitudes were closely related to later sexual debut and fewer sexual partners. Perceived closeness determined the degree to which adolescents respected and incorporated their parents’ beliefs, values, and sexual expectations. Future research should focus on developing family strategies to utilize the concept of perceived parental expectations.

• Are there cultural differences that play a role in adolescents’ sexual behaviors?

Lay, B., Ihle, W., Esser, G., Schmidt, M. H., (2005). Juvenile-Episodic, Continued, or Adult-Onset Delinquency? Risk Conditions Analyzed in a Cohort of Children Followed Up to the Age of 25 Years. European Journal of Criminology. 2(1): 39-66.

This paper reports findings from a prospective study of a cohort of 321 eight-year-old children followed up to the age of 25 years. By examining officially recorded and self-reported delinquent behaviors, the present analysis aimed to distinguish three types of life course: episodic juvenile delinquency; continued juvenile delinquency up to adulthood; and late-starting delinquency in early adulthood. The analysis identifies a variety of risk factors assessed in childhood and adolescence, that increase the likelihood of later delinquent behavior. Some of these risk factors are common to the three types of delinquency life course, but there are also risk constellations that are specific to the particular life-course types; these risk constellations differ in terms of the number and variety of risk factors, and in terms of the absolute and relative impact of particular risk behaviors.

• What risk factors in adolescence are identified? What can you do when working with adolescents that may be experiencing similar risk factors?