Youth Peer Research Articles

AIDS and sex education for young people in China.

Although China has had a rich sexual culture for thousands of years, Chinese people are usually unwilling to openly discuss issues of sex. Some parents are quite ignorant of the change in their children's sexual attitude and behaviour. In China today, adolescents are becoming much more sexually liberated. Premarital sex and unplanned pregnancies among teenagers are increasing. Sexually transmitted diseases (STD) including HIV/AIDS are also spreading rapidly. However, young people lack basic information on AIDS/STD and do not know how to protect themselves from these diseases or how to avoid unintended pregnancies. Several major youth peer education programmes in China are mentioned in this paper. Among them, a four-year programme entitled the Australian-Chinese AIDS/STD/Safer Sex Peer Education Programme for Youth, is discussed in some detail. The programme has so far reached over 40000 university and school students. Evaluation results show that the programme is effective in both significantly increasing students' knowledge about AIDS/STDs and changing their attitude towards AIDS patients. In addition, the programme is highly praised by the students.

Youth Volunteer and Peer Support Project

Youth Volunteer and Peer Support Project

Gender, parental and peer influences upon science attitudes and activities

This paper explores the extent to which variance in science attitudes and involvement in science activities may be attributable to gender, parental and peer influences upon 11-14 year olds in the UK. The data presented are derived from a sample of 391 pupils drawn at random, but stratified by age and gender, from Local Education Authority schools (i.e. schools within the state sector where parents make no direct payments for education). A self-completion questionnaire was administered to the pupils in school. Attitudes toward scientific change, involvement in scientific extra-curricular activity, liking and performance in school science subjects, and participation in peer youth culture were indexed, in addition to estimates of the amount of positive regard for science expressed by peers and parents. Boys had more positive attitudes to science and greater levels of participation in scientific extra-curricular activities. They also reported performing better at school science than girls. A positive attitude to science was strongly positively related to having a father and mother who support science, coming from a lower socio-economic family background, being male, and having scientific peers. Greater involvement in scientific extra-curricular activities was predicted by having a father who supports science, having parents who engage in activities jointly with their children, and having scientific peers. In terms of predicting participation in science, liking of it and success at it, these data lead to the conclusion that both parental and peer support are influential. Though it does seem that they are relatively more important in predicting variance in attitudes to science in society than as indicators of liking of or performance at school science. The problems involved in estimating whether commonly reported gender effects are mediated through peer or parental support are discussed.

Prevention of adolescent chemical dependency

Chemical dependency is part of a significant pattern of serious health problems resulting from the breakdown of social control over impulsive, pleasure-driven adolescent behavior. The drug epidemic in North America, after two decades of relentless increases, shows encouraging signs that stopping it may be possible. Chemical dependency prevention became a serious concern in the 1970s in response to the rising drug epidemic. Initial efforts focused on drug-specific education in the mass media and in the schools. After discouraging and even counterproductive results, nonspecific or generic prevention efforts were tried in both areas. These efforts, too, did not prevent drug use or drug problems. More recently, using cigarette smoking prevention initiatives in schools as a model, hopeful results have been achieved. These efforts combine education about immediate negative effects of drug use with training in skills to resist peer pressure to use drugs. These efforts also build youth peer rejection of drug use. Promising a wider community effort to prevent chemical dependency are several macro prevention programs. These include efforts to decrease tolerance for drug use and to identify drug users in four specific areas: families, schools, highways, and the workplace. Chemical dependency can be prevented by a variety of interventions, including one-to-one encounters, school-based skills training, and society-wide initiatives to reject drug use. The teenage years are a time of unique vulnerability to initiation of drug and alcohol use. The clear goal of prevention is to help young people to survive these years without using drugs, including the gateway drugs: alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine. The pediatrician can play a vital role in successful prevention activities with patients, with their families, in communities, and in the nation as a whole.

Prevention of Adolescent Chemical Dependency

Chemical dependency is part of a significant pattern of serious health problems resulting from the breakdown of social control over impulsive, pleasure-driven adolescent behavior. The drug epidemic in North America, after two decades of relentless increases, shows encouraging signs that stopping it may be possible. Chemical dependency prevention became a serious concern in the 1970s in response to the rising drug epidemic. Initial efforts focused on drug-specific education in the mass media and in the schools. After discouraging and even counterproductive results, nonspecific or generic prevention efforts were tried in both areas. These efforts, too, did not prevent drug use or drug problems. More recently, using cigarette smoking prevention initiatives in schools as a model, hopeful results have been achieved. These efforts combine education about immediate negative effects of drug use with training in skills to resist peer pressure to use drugs. These efforts also build youth peer rejection of drug use. Promising a wider community effort to prevent chemical dependency are several macro prevention programs. These include efforts to decrease tolerance for drug use and to identify drug users in four specific areas: families, schools, highways, and the workplace. Chemical dependency can be prevented by a variety of interventions, including one-to-one encounters, school-based skills training, and society-wide initiatives to reject drug use. The teenage years are a time of unique vulnerability to initiation of drug and alcohol use. The clear goal of prevention is to help young people to survive these years without using drugs, including the gateway drugs: alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine. The pediatrician can play a vital role in successful prevention activities with patients, with their families, in communities, and in the nation as a whole.

BLACK AND WHITE YOUTH AND THEIR PEERS

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsLeonard DouglasThe author, who taught in the Detroit Public Schools for many years, is presently a member of the Educational Psychology Department, Kentucky State College. He received a doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1969. In the Nov.‐Dec, 7971 issue of this magazine, he wrote “ ‘Negro’ Self‐Concept: Myth or Reality?”

The Production of Human Capital and the Life Cycle of Earnings

T HE application of capital theory to decisions on individual improvement, and in particular improvement of earning capacity, has provided a framework for the understanding of many aspects of observed behavior regarding education, health, occupational choice, mobility, etc., as rational investment of present resources for the purpose of enjoying future returns. The formulation by Friedman and Kuznets (1945) and the significant development of the theory by Becker (1962, 1964) and Mincer (1958, 1962) provided a novel view of the life cycle of earnings by linking it to the time profile of investment in human capital: People make most of their investments in themselves when they are young, and to a large extent by foregoing current earnings. Observed earnings are therefore relatively low at early years, and they rise as investment declines and as returns on past investments are realized. The main reason why investment is undertaken mostly by the young is that they have a longer period over which they can re-

Adolescents' Views on Sex Education

HUMAN RELATIONS education is an important part of the socialization process for every individual. The dissemination of sex information and the development of sex attitudes are essential components of human relations education. In our society at the present time, transmission of the sex culture tends to rely on the youth peer group rather than, as in other aspects of the culture, descending from adults to youths. The lack of communication between the generations concerning sex is both cause and effect of confusion concerning sex norms, with mutual recriminations increasingly common. Much has been written and proposed by adults concerning the role that should be played by the adult institutions which are presumed to handle this education for youth-the home, school, and church. There is very little material available to the family life educator which comes directly from early and middle adolescents to reveal their views about this vital part of their education. By working with a group of high school youths, the author attempted to get material from the adolescent point of view in three general areas: