African-American and Latina Inner-City Girls’ Reports of Romantic and Sexual Development

Abstract

Scripts that specify cultural expectations regarding appropriate sexual and romantic conduct become especially salient during adolescence. Fifty-seven African-American and Latina girls (10–13 years) from impoverishedneighborhoods of New York City participated in one of eight semi-structuredgroup interviews to assess girls’ perceptions of the scripts guiding sexual and romantic development. As expected, the social and cultural contexts of early adolescent African-American and Latina girls influence their development of scripts for intimate relationships. Girls learn romantic and sexual standards – including the sequences of intimate progression and the contexts of early sexual exploration – by interacting with samesex peers and by viewing the interactions of others. Girls reported considerable pressure from other girls to engage in sexual activity with boys, yetalso to conform to traditional norms condemning permissive sexuality. Idealized, romanticized views of sexual relationships were more apparent in discussions with Latina adolescents than with African-American adolescents. These findings illustrate how unmonitored mixed-sex encounters are possibly important early social contexts for girls’ sexual development, and how the extensive peer involvement in girls’ early sexual experimentationhas important implications for the development of interventions for minority girls residing in inner-city communities.