Gender Differences in Parent-Child: Communication about Sexuality - Assignment Example

Gender differences in parent-child communication about sexuality Summary In an exploratory study in Gender differences in Parent-Child Communication About Sexuality, factual, sociosexual and moral discussions about sexuality were examined using questionnaire data from mother-father-child triads and focus groups of questionnaire respondents. The factual communication topics were pregnancy, the father’s part in conception, menstruation, nocturnal emissions, sexual intercourse, masturbation, and birth control. Sociosexual communication was measured by reports of parents and child on ever having discussed a number of sex related topics dealing with birth control, dating, adolescent pregnancy, legality of abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, male-female psychological differences, and love and marriage. The are of moral communication considered whether the parents and child ever discussed whether premarital sexual intercourse is right or wrong, whether sexual intercourse before marriage is right or wrong, and the parent’s own sexual values. To gauge a measure of the ease of communication, respondents were asked “how easy is it to talk to…” for three different stages. The focus group protocol consisted of unstructured and semi-structured questions to encourage in-depth discussion among participants to “reveal the meanings they attached to communication about sexuality” on a range of issues. The aim though was to identify gender differences in communication, teaching and learning sexual values, and influences on adolescent sexual decision-making. The quantitative data was analyzed using an SPSS-X system file and a collective measure constructed from the responses. The “mother-child and father-child responses were compared and compared to reflect the triad communication on each topic”. Then “a composite measure was created for each of the three types of communication reflecting agreement between the child and each parent for each topic”, and a median split for the combined responses was done. The children were assigned to high communication groups if they agreed with one or both of their parents. As “preliminary analyses revealed marked differences between communication with sons and with daughters”, they were then analyzed separately. And, the analysis also revealed “substantial differences between mothers and fathers as sexuality educators”. Due to the exploratory nature of the study and the small nonrandom sample, contingency tables were constructed and Yule’s Q chosen as an appropriate nonparametric statistic. The qualitative data comprised of individual views of parents and children of both genders. The group discussions were audio-taped and findings were drawn after comparing them with the information obtained from the questionnaires. A process of coding, comparing, contrasting and aggregating was employed “to generate conceptual categories”. This method was suitable because the focus groups were designed to verify the ability of the participants to recall discussions about sexuality as well as aid in the interpretation. Results from the quantitative data “revealed striking differences in parent-son versus parent-daughter communication”. Communication between mother and daughter was the widest ranging (11.6) for all 17 topics whereas the average communication between father and daughter covered only about one-third of the topics (5.5). On average, mothers and sons talked about less than half of the topics (6.5) but still exceeded the mean number of topics discussed between fathers and sons (5.9). These differences “persisted across the three types of communication” with only slight variations except that “daughters were more likely than sons to engage in high factual communication with at least one parent and by a large margin”. Three quarters of the daughters versus only half of the sons agreed with at least one parent about having communicated the topics in each category although disparity “was most evident with factual and moral communication”. Sons and parents were least likely to have discussed moral issues and most likely to discuss sociosexual issues. As sexual educators there were found to be “substantial differences between mothers and fathers as agents of sexual socialization, and this resulted in the imbalance of communication for sons and daughters. “Mothers were more likely than fathers to discuss birth control, adolescent pregnancy, and sexual morality with both sons and daughters” but more so with daughters. Thus a communication gap for sons exists, which is not filled by fathers either. “In fact, fathers were as likely to communicate about adolscent pregnancy with daughters as with sons and more likely to communicate with daughters about sexual morality”. Although discussions on birth control and adolescent pregnancy showed broad agreement, it was not the same with sexual morality. Only 24% of mother-father-triads and 41% of mother-father-daughter triads even discussed it. As for ease of communication, most families reported it was easier communicating about sexuality during the child’s high school years, again especially between mothers and daughters. From the child’s perspective though, less than half of sons reported easy communication with either parent during high school. “The majority of daughters perceived communication to be easy with mother but relatively few perceived ease with father. Evaluation Previous Studies of parent-child communication about sexuality generally have three limitations: lack of attention to the father’s role, inadequate specification of the types of communication, and reliance on the reports of one or the other. Most previous studies were focused on girls and their mothers. Secondly, this study attempts to capture the general content of communication “through categorizing discussions of varying types”. The third limitation can cause a “bias due to discrepancy in the perceptions of family members regarding communication”. This study claims to be free from these limitations found in many earlier studies. It sought to explore the gender difference between both parents as educators and the children as recipients so that it could lay the “ground work for a more precise examination of the relationship between adolescent sexual behavior and parent-child communication about sexuality”. In doing so, not one but three types of communication were examined viz. providing biological information through factual discussion, discussions of general sex related topics and moral discussions aimed at teaching sexual values. The study excels because it specifically attempted “to minimize the effect of discrepancy in recall and/or perception of sexual discussions by matching responses within each parent-child dyad for all topics”. And, it explored the ways in which differences in mother-child and father-child communication influence sons and daughters as the information seekers, constructors of social values as well as sexual actors. Given that the study focused on communication with both mother and father, it necessarily involved two-parent families i.e. single or same parent families were not included. Communication could show marked differences between single and two parent families for instance. Also, the number of girls (46) was higher than that of boys (38). The mean average age of the adolescent children was 16. So more girls than boys were questioned. It could be that the views of boys was underrepresented. Given also, the fact that “all of the participants were white and middle or upper-middle class”, that the parents were highly educated, and the breakdown of religious background between protestant (42%), catholic (26%) and Jewish (24%), it shows that the study was also focused on a particular type of family. This study is more representative of an educated Christian white middle to upper-middle class family than it is likely to be of a multi-cultural and multi-religious society of differing social classes. This may not in itself be a deliberate bias but it is important to bear these features of the sample in mind before making any generalizations concerning the larger population. The nature of the communication being a sensitive topic is highly likely to show great differences had it been conducted amongst different cultural and religious groups, and to some extent also amongst different social classes. Moreover, the focus discussion in the second phase of the study was an even more selective group of individuals from within the original who were interviewed. Although the report states “there were no discernible differences between families who participated in this phase of the research and families who did not”, the subsample (14% of the original families) is significantly small. So they are not representative of the general population. But it can also be said that they were only used to obtain elaborations in existing information and therefore as “an aid in the interpretation of the quantitative data”. It is also noteworthy that many of the families were provided as referrals by the initial families who were selected by the researcher’s own personal network. This only adds to the concern that the families were too selective than a random sample despite the author claiming that the initial selection was “on the basis of geographical, religious, and educational diversity…” The use of focus group discussion though was advantageous because these are informal discussions that evoke “personal and in-depth impressions that would be impossible to elicit from questionnaires”. Any existing conceptualizations of the researcher do not interfere with the study so that “the participants’ own definitions of the situation under scrutiny” are captured rather than by an imposed external meaning. The spontaneous discussions that tend to ensue usually provide rich data for qualitative analysis than can be provided by individual interviews alone. Integrated summary Open communications between parents and children about sexuality are seen as having a potentially positive influence on adolescent sexual attitudes and behavior although empirical research “has yielded inconsistent results”. The research makes effective use of both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The range of topics within each area is broad but the sample is not representative of a cross section of society. The most striking observation was that “neither father-son nor mother-son communication approached the level of mother-daughter communication for any topic”. Mothers are generally seen “as the more appropriate parent with whom to discuss sexual matters”. And, an opportunity for discussing sexual topics with their daughters arises especially when having to inform them about handling menstruation. There is no same level of ease for communicating with boys. Previous similar research also points to parent daughter communication usually being more wide-ranging than parent-son communication, especially on factual and moral discussions. Mothers are perhaps seen as more befitting for the role of educating their children on sexuality. Boys are relatively disadvantaged. This is worrying because they are “less likely than daughters to learn about sexuality in the context of a family relationship, less likely to discuss sexual topics with the same sex parent, and perhaps less likely to learn from family norms for appropriate sexual behavior”. The report highlights the communication gap with boys in general and especially in that only a few sons engage in moral discussions with parents even if reporting ease of communication. The most important lesson is therefore to improve parent-son communication about sexuality because boys are also more susceptible to peer group pressure. The qualitative data helped to give “a more complete view and understanding of the process and outcomes of parent-child communication about sexuality”. The qualitative research shed greater light on the quantitative results and showed that factual communication during early childhood was relatively more relaxed whereas this became challenging, uncomfortable and less effective later in the child’s life. The later adolescent stages correspond to a period in which there is a growing need for information and that too on the interpersonal, erotic and moral aspects of sexuality despite the fact that “opportunities to discuss sexuality presented themselves”. It is due to sexual topics taking on new meanings and issues of protection of privacy. Parents regard themselves as having lost ‘control’ of discussion of sex related topics with adolescents beyond “the stage of giving simple, factual information”. It is the same the other way round too. Adolescents also report “reluctance to enter into discussions with their parents about sexuality”. Evan in discussions that do take place, they tend to be too vague for adolescents to get any meaningful messages about sexuality, particularly on sexual morality. Instead, parents tend to communication sexual values indirectly to their children in other ways through discussing respect and honesty for example, The main reason given for this is that parents had no example set for them, which therefore made it difficult for them in communicating about sexuality with their children. Fathers report greater discomfort in talking to their children about sexuality. But adolescents also pointed out that they “were less available for discussions”. Although the selection for the focus study was not random and only a minority of the original families participated, it did promote discussion and gave valuable insight on the quantitative findings. For example, the questionnaires had suggested easier and more extensive family communication but the qualitative research clarified this. Despite its limitations, this study consolidates the findings of earlier ones in a more thorough way and paves the way for future studies to build upon these findings so that different types of discussion can be conceptualized “to capture the content of family communication about sexuality”. One explanation for the difficulty with previous research is the difficulty of talking on topics dealing with sexuality within the family because both parents and adolescents try to protect their comfort and privacy instead of communicating directly. The qualitative data in this study however did make an important contribution to “gaining a more complete view and understanding of the process and outcomes of parent-child communication about sexuality”. Work Cited Nolin, Mary and Petersen, Karen Kay. Gender Differences in Parent-Child Communication About Sexuality: An Exploratory Study. Journal of Adolescent Research, Vol. 7 No. 1, (January 1992): pp. 59-79. Sage publications, Inc. Read More