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Let Us Talk About Sexual Immaturity in Adolescence: Implications for School-Based Sex Education

DOI:10.1007/s13178-018-0348-7
Authors:
Anneliese Bolland at University of Alabama
Anneliese Bolland
Elizabeth Schlichting at University of Alabama at Birmingham
Elizabeth Schlichting
Qshequilla Parham Mitchell at University of Alabama
Qshequilla Parham Mitchell
Jasmine Ward
Jasmine Ward
Jasmine Ward
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While rates of sexual activity among adolescents have declined, they remain high among adolescents living in poverty. Risky sexual behaviors are often compounded, placing adolescents at greater risk for increased prevalence of sexual behaviors during later adolescence and other behaviors that may compromise later life chances. Sexual immaturity may influence sexual initiation and trajectories of sexual behavior. In the current study, using a growth curve framework, data from the Mobile Youth and Poverty Study are used to model how sexual immaturity develops across adolescence as a function of age, gender, and sex education. Results suggest that girls are less sexually immature than boys, regardless of exposure to school-based sex education. For girls, sexual immaturity trajectories were similar throughout adolescence. However, during early adolescence, boys receiving school-based sex education had more immature sexual beliefs than those who had not. By middle adolescence, these differences had disappeared, and by late adolescence, boys receiving sex education had more mature attitudes boys who had not. Our results suggest that school-based sex education curricula should take into consideration how sexual maturity is portrayed among adolescents, particularly those who live in impoverished communities.
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Let’s Talk About Sexual Immaturity in Adolescence: Implications
for School-Based Sex Education
Anneliese C. Bolland
1
&Elizabeth Schlichting
2
&Qshequilla Mitchell
3
&Jasmine Ward
4
&John M. Bolland
5
Published online: 6 August 2018
#Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018, corrected publication November/2018
Abstract
While rates of sexual activity among adolescents have declined, they remain high among adolescents living in poverty. Risky
sexual behaviors are often compounded, placing adolescents at greater risk for increased prevalence of sexual behaviors during
later adolescence and other behaviors that may compromise later life chances. Sexual immaturity may influence sexual initiation
and trajectories of sexual behavior. In the current study, using a growth curve framework, data from the Mobile Youth and
Poverty Study are used to model how sexual immaturity develops across adolescence as a function of age, gender, and sex
education. Results suggest that girls are less sexually immature than boys, regardless of exposure to school-based sex education.
For girls, sexual immaturity trajectories were similar throughout adolescence. However, during early adolescence, boys receiving
school-based sex education had more immature sexual beliefs than those who had not. By middle adolescence, these differences
had disappeared, and by late adolescence, boys receiving sex education had more mature attitudes boys who had not. Our results
suggest that school-based sex education curricula should take into consideration how sexual maturity is portrayed among
adolescents, particularly those who live in impoverished communities.
Keywords School-based sex education .Longitudinal analysis .Poverty .Adolescence .Adultification .Immaturity
Introduction
Although rates of teen pregnancy have been falling during the
past decade, sexual behavior among adolescents (and
especially among low-income, minority adolescents) remains
a concern. Poverty and minority status likely affect adolescent
development in ways that promote and reinforce immature
beliefs and attitudes, which potentially result in risk behaviors.
School-based sex education (SBSE) programs provide one
means to increase knowledge and understanding of sexuality
and sexual behavior, which potentially mitigate sexual imma-
turity. In this paper, we explore sexually immature beliefs and
attitudes, and how they may be affected by SBSE, in a popu-
lation of students living in highly impoverished communities.
Findings show that (a) boys have more sexually immature
beliefs and attitudes than girls; (b) participation in SBSE pro-
grams is associated with different levels of these beliefs and
their trajectories over time (albeit not always in the expected
direction); and (c) the trajectories ofthese beliefs,as a function
of SBSE, differ by gender.
Adolescent Development and Adultification
Adolescence is a period of rapid development, situated be-
tween childhood and adulthood, and much of the development
occurring between childhood and adulthood is linear; howev-
er, with respect to some development, adolescence is a period
of disruption. Identity development, for example, is fairly lin-
ear from childhood, through adolescence, and to adulthood
(Erikson, 1956, although, Erikson’s Identity Development al-
so suggests that growth depends on crisis). Similarly, cogni-
tive development is fairly linear from childhood, through ad-
olescence, and to adulthood (Piaget, 1971,1972). On the other
*Anneliese C. Bolland
acbolland@ua.edu
1
Institute for Communication and Information Research, The
University of Alabama, Box 870172, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
2
Arts and Sciences, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL,
USA
3
Academic Affairs, The University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL,
USA
4
Health Studies, Texas Women’s University, Denton, TX, USA
5
Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Alabama,
Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
Sexuality Research and Social Policy (2019) 16:357–372
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-018-0348-7
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... There are a higher number of learners who engage in risky sexual behaviour with a resultant higher prevalence of HIV/STIs and teenage pregnancy in more disadvantaged areas and in the schools in these areas (Bagnol et al., 2010). Therefore, the schools in these disadvantaged settings require the most support; however, they are the lowest resourced (Bolland, Schlichting, Mitchell, Ward, & Bolland, 2018). The LO educators in these disadvantaged schools face the highest frequency and intensity of challenges; however, they have the least resources at their disposal to assist and support them in teaching beneficial sexuality education to learners (Bolland et al., 2018). ...
... Therefore, the schools in these disadvantaged settings require the most support; however, they are the lowest resourced (Bolland, Schlichting, Mitchell, Ward, & Bolland, 2018). The LO educators in these disadvantaged schools face the highest frequency and intensity of challenges; however, they have the least resources at their disposal to assist and support them in teaching beneficial sexuality education to learners (Bolland et al., 2018). Educators and schools in these areas are therefore expected to not only be aware of and adapt their teaching content and style to these specific challenges in order to successfully address them but to overcome the barrier of inadequate resources via their use of best suited pedagogues for these areas and learners. ...
... In line with prior research, these included strained parentallearner relationships and repetitiveness of the sexuality education syllabus throughout the secondary school grades (Koen, 2011;Matshoba & Rooth, 2014). The study supports prior South African research that the LO curriculum is repetitive from grade to grade and may cause boredom amongst learners, thus increasing the need for educators' skills in engaging learners (Bolland et al., 2018;Koen, 2011;Matshoba & Rooth, 2014;Shisana et al., 2014). Furthermore, educators, regardless of school PQ level, indicated that the lower the academic grade-point average of the class, the more likely learners were to be disrespectful and disruptive in class. ...
Factors That Have an Impact on Educator Pedagogues in Teaching Sexuality Education to Secondary School Learners in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Article
Full-text available
In a bid to reduce rates of HIV and AIDS, teenage pregnancy and STIs in this high-risk age group, sexuality education, as provided via the Life Orientation (LO) curriculum, is aimed at providing standardised prevention of risky sexual behaviour to all school-going youth in South Africa. The programme is facilitated by the LO educators who strive to develop learners’ abilities to make healthy choices for their own lives. Qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews with six educators from four different socio-economic status schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, were conducted and analysed using Thematic Content Analysis. Educators were selected via random sampling which is representative of poverty quintiles 2–5 in the Umlazi district of KwaZulu-Natal. The findings of the study demonstrate that while educators were personally aware of and were practicing suitable pedagogy adapted to the needs of their learners, their school environments presented challenges which were perceived as barriers to their intentions to implement these best suited practices. LO educators, however, demonstrated the ability and skill to overcome these barriers by creating relationship-centred learning. The provision of resources by the government, curricular changes of repetitive subject content and participatory learner-educator–centred learning is required to overcome the challenges in low-resourced schools. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-019-00400-5#citeas Full text read only here: https://rdcu.be/bO2d0
... Specifically, men and women tend to have different stereotypes and scripts for sexual behavior (Hust et al., 2017), with men being more commonly conceptualized as sexual initiators than women (Jozkowski et al., 2017). In addition, the age at which adolescents are exposed to sexual education tends to influence their sexual ideas (Bolland et al., 2019), and certain demographic groups, such as African Americans (Hutchinson & Montgomery, 2007) and individuals from low-income families (Nadeem et al., 2006), tend to disproportionately experience adverse sexual health outcomes. Past studies also suggest that Canadian adolescents' past experiences and sexual esteem (Byers et al., 2016) and Chinese adolescents' anxiety (Wong et al., 2017) may influence sexual beliefs and decision making. ...
... Adolescent variables including being cisgender, African American, or Latinx were associated with lower importance of consent beliefs, while sexual esteem was associated with higher importance of consent beliefs. These findings add to past research highlighting differences in sexual beliefs and behaviors as a function of demographic characteristics (e.g., Bolland et al., 2019;Hust et al., 2017;Nadeem et al., 2006) and suggest that additional research needs to be conducted exploring consent beliefs across a variety of groups. Given the findings suggesting ethnic minority parents talk with their children more about consent, it is possible this is in response to parents feeling their teens do not place enough importance on sexual consent. ...
How Do Parents Teach “No Means No”? An Exploration of How Sexual Consent Beliefs Are Socialized During Adolescence
Article
  • Jul 2020
Research on sexual consent has increased in recent years, but we know almost nothing about how beliefs about consent are socialized during adolescence, which likely has important implications for behaviors related to obtaining sexual consent. The current study explored the frequency of parent–adolescent consent communication, as well as demographic, adolescent, and parent predictors of adolescents’ beliefs about the importance of consent and the frequency of parent–adolescent consent communication. Two national samples were used, one consisting of 2,044 adolescents, ages 13 to 18 (M age = 16.19, SD = 1.71; 50% female), and a second sample of 2,081 nonrelated individuals, ages 28 to 81, who were parents of teens ages 13–18 (M age = 15.25, SD = 1.56). Findings suggested that parents did not talk about sexual consent any more than they did about other sexual topics (e.g., reproduction). We also found that maternal warmth was positively associated with adolescents’ importance of consent beliefs and that adolescents’ uninhibited temperament and parents’ self-efficacy and sexual beliefs were associated with parent–adolescent consent communication. The discussion focuses on the need to educate parents so they feel more confident talking to adolescents about the importance of giving and receiving sexual consent.
Growth in Adolescent Self-Regulation and Impact on Sexual Risk-Taking: A Curve-of-Factors Analysis
Article
Full-text available
Adolescent self-regulation is increasingly seen as an important predictor of sexual risk-taking behaviors, but little is understood about how changes in self-regulation affect later sexual risk-taking. Family financial stress may affect the development of self-regulation and later engagement in sexual risk-taking. We examined whether family financial stress influences self-regulation in early adolescence (age 13) and growth in self-regulation throughout adolescence (from age 13-17 years). We then assessed the effects of family financial stress, baseline self-regulation, and the development of self-regulation on adolescent sexual risk-taking behaviors at age 18 years. Using a curve-of-factors model, we examined these relationships in a 6-year longitudinal study of 470 adolescents (52% female) and their parents from a large northwestern city in the United States. Results indicated that family financial stress was negatively associated with baseline self-regulation but not with growth in self-regulation throughout adolescence. Both baseline self-regulation and growth in self-regulation were predictive of decreased likelihood of engaging in sexual risk-taking. Family financial stress was not predictive of later sexual risk-taking. Intervening to support the development of self-regulation in adolescence may be especially protective against later sexual risk-taking.
Does Missing Data in Studies of Hard-to-Reach Populations Bias Results? Not Necessarily
Article
Full-text available
Missing data are always an issue in community-based longitudinal studies, calling into question the representativeness of samples and bias in conclusions, the research has generated. This may be due to the difficulty of implementing random sampling procedures in these studies and/or the inherent difficulty in sampling hard-to-reach segments of the population being studied. In fact, the ability to accurately study hard-to-reach populations in light of potential bias created by missing data remains an open question. In this study, missing data are defined as both failure to interview potential research participants identified in the sampling frame and failure to retain enrolled research participants longitudinally. Using the sample from the Mobile Youth Survey, a multiple-cohort, longitudinal study of adolescents living in highly impoverished neighborhoods in Mobile, Alabama, we examined sample representativeness and dropout to determine whether missing data led to a nonrepresentative, and therefore, biased sample. Results indicate that even though random procedures are not strictly used to draw the sample, (a) the sample appears to be largely representative of the population that was studied, and (b) attrition is largely uncorrelated with characteristics of those who dropped out. This suggests that it is possible to study with validity hard-to reach populations in community settings.
Family instability and children's effortful control in the context of poverty: Sometimes a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2016
Effortful control has been demonstrated to have important ramifications for children's self-regulation and social–emotional adjustment. However, there are wide socioeconomic disparities in children's effortful control, with impoverished children displaying heightened difficulties. The current study was designed to demonstrate how instability within the proximal rearing context of young children may serve as a key operant on the development of children's effortful control in the context of poverty. Two separate studies were conducted that included samples of children living within homes characterized by heightened economic risk. In Study 1, we tested the differential prediction of family instability on two domains of children's effortful control: cool effortful control and delay control. Consistent with hypotheses, elevated instability was associated with decreased hot effortful control but not cool effortful control over the span of 2 years. In Study 2, we examined how children's basal cortisol activity may account for associations between heightened instability and effortful control in reward tasks. The results were consistent with sensitization models, suggesting that elevated cortisol activity arising from increased uncertainty and unpredictability in rearing contexts may influence children's hot effortful control. The findings are interpreted within emerging evolutionary–developmental frameworks of child development.
Professional Development on Sexual Health Education Is Associated With Coverage of Sexual Health Topics
Article
  • Jul 2017
Background. Sexual health education plays a vital role in preventing adverse consequences of sexual behavior. Data are limited on how professional development (PD) for teachers is associated with teaching sexual health content. Method. We used data from the 2014 School Health Policies and Practices Study, a cross-sectional survey that included a nationally representative sample of middle and high school health education courses (n = 328; 96.2% of those sampled). We examined whether teacher characteristics and receipt of PD on four sexual health domains (human sexuality and the prevention of pregnancy, HIV, and sexually transmitted diseases) were associated with teaching those four domains and whether PD was associated with teaching specific topics within each domain. In a second set of analyses, we compared the difference in coverage of specific topics by receipt of PD among only the teachers who reported teaching the domain. Results. The prevalence of teaching sexual health content was higher among courses in which teachers had a degree in health education or were certified to teach health education. A robust relationship between teachers’ receipt of PD and the teaching of nearly all sexual health topics as well as an increase in the mean number of topics taught and the time devoted to the domain was demonstrated. Conclusions. PD has a positive impact on the coverage of sexual health topics among middle and high school courses. These data suggest a need for more PD on sexual health education content to ensure that sexual health topics are taught in the classroom.
The Decline in Adult Activities Among U.S. Adolescents, 1976–2016
Article
The social and historical contexts may influence the speed of development. In seven large, nationally representative surveys of U.S. adolescents 1976–2016 (N = 8.44 million, ages 13–19), fewer adolescents in recent years engaged in adult activities such as having sex, dating, drinking alcohol, working for pay, going out without their parents, and driving, suggesting a slow life strategy. Adult activities were less common when median income, life expectancy, college enrollment, and age at first birth were higher and family size and pathogen prevalence were lower, consistent with life history theory. The trends are unlikely to be due to homework and extracurricular time, which stayed steady or declined, and may or may not be linked to increased Internet use.
The Longitudinal Impact of Perceptions of Parental Monitoring on Adolescent Initiation of Sexual Activity
Article
Purpose The association between parental monitoring and adolescent behavior is well established. Past research suggests that parents monitor adolescent activities through parental control, solicitation of information, and youth disclosure, which increase parents' knowledge of youth activity leading to decreased risk behavior. However, there is mixed evidence of the impact of these efforts on sexual behavior. We examined these strategies from the adolescent perspective and assessed their impact on the initiation of sexual activity across the transition from middle school to high school. Methods Analyses include 533 primarily Latino adolescents, who had not yet had sex in eighth grade and were surveyed yearly through 10th grade. Results Adolescents who in eighth grade reported greater parental knowledge and more family rules about dating were less likely to initiate sex between eighth and 10th grade. Exchange of information, through parental solicitation and youth disclosure, and parental control, through rules about friends and dating, as well as maternal relationship satisfaction were significant predictors of parental knowledge. There were no gender differences in the impact of dating rules and parental knowledge on sexual initiation, but the paths to acquiring knowledge did differ by gender. Conclusions Results suggest that parental monitoring at earlier ages has an impact on sexual initiation. Effective monitoring is an active process within a family that includes setting boundaries and exchanging information. Interventions that encourage family rules, provide strategies for improving parental solicitation of information, and increase youth disclosure by enhancing the maternal-child relationship may be more likely to impact sexual initiation.