Investigating Adolescent Sexual Health Knowledge and Behavior Using Bridging Multiple Worlds and Schema Theories

• In Event: 31.031 - Advancing Social Justice by Bridging the Cultural Worlds of Students, Families, Communities, Schools, and Universities

Abstract

Purpose
This project investigates how the social ecology of low-SES African American female teens in Tuscaloosa, Alabama influences HIV risk cultural meaning and behaviors. This investigation is important because Alabama provides only abstinence-only education in public schools; public health survey data indicate condom use declined from 1999-2011 among African American adolescents (Eaton et al., 2012).

Theoretical Frameworks
The study drew on two theoretical frameworks. Bridging Multiple Worlds Theory focuses on characteristics of social ecologies in adolescence, and includes the cultural worlds, such as families, schools, or neighborhoods, where cultural meaning and behavior familiar to insiders of each world can be identified. This study examines the roles of goals, values, beliefs, expectations, and behaviors found in these worlds in the cultural well being of adolescents (Cooper, 2011; Phelan et al., 1991).

Schema Theory is concerned with the formation of cultural meanings and cultural models, “shared cognitive schemas through which human realities are constructed and interpreted” (D’Andrade & Strauss, 1992, p. 3). Person schemas are prototypical traits that enable individuals to easily categorize others, while self-schemas reflect how individuals identify their own traits and behavior (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). This study examines how characteristics of adolescents’ multiple worlds are identified through person schemas and embodied in self-schemas of cultural beliefs associated with HIV risk.

Methods
Study participants were 10 African American adolescent girls (ages 14-18) living in a disadvantaged community in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The study used a mixed-methods approach to describe adolescents’ multiple worlds, their cultural meanings of HIV risk, and the relation between features of adolescents’ multiple worlds and their cultural meanings of HIV risk. Materials include field notes and in-depth individual and focus group responses.

Results
Across interviews, a key distinction emerged between the cultural schemas of “high HIV risk girls” and “low HIV risk girls.” The schema of “high-risk girls” was more typical of adolescents who participated in fewer social worlds and were believed to more frequently engage in sexual activities. In contrast, girls viewed as “low risk” were believed to be integrated into multiple cultural worlds, including their school, church, and home, and to be those who “stayed inside” their homes, a way female peers in the community lowered their HIV risk.

Significance and Implications
A major contribution of the study will be to describe how socio-cultural influences contribute to adolescents’ HIV risk knowledge and how knowledge is converted to practice. The results will provide information regarding limitations of abstinence-only education among vulnerable populations. It will help health and social science researchers understand sociocultural factors affecting HIV risk beliefs. Understanding how adolescents negotiate health information and risks in their everyday social contexts can be employed in future studies of health across the lifespan. Important next questions include: where these young women get information regarding correct and consistent condom use and who serves as “cultural brokers” for accurate information about HIV/STI transmission and risk-reduction. Although sexual health interventions often focus on mother-daughter dyads, participants preferred to discuss HIV/STI prevention with their doctors, teachers, or school social workers.

Author

• Martina Thomas, University of Alabama