Adolescent girls' assessment and management of sexual risks: Insights from focus group research Article

Bay-Cheng, LY, Livingston, JA, Fava, NM. (2011). Adolescent girls' assessment and management of sexual risks: Insights from focus group research . YOUTH & SOCIETY, 43(3), 1167-1193. 10.1177/0044118X10384475

cited authors

  • Bay-Cheng, LY; Livingston, JA; Fava, NM

authors

abstract

  • We conducted focus groups with girls ages 14 to 17 (N = 43) to study how the dominant discourse of sexual risk shapes young women's understanding of the sexual domain and their management of these presumably pervasive threats. Through inductive analysis, we developed a coding scheme focused on three themes: (a) types of sexual risk, (b) factors that moderate sexual risk, and (c) strategies for managing sexual risk. Collectively, participants identified many risks but distanced themselves from these by claiming that girls' susceptibility is largely a function of personal factors and therefore avoidable given the right traits, values, and skills. We consider this reliance on other-blaming and self-exemption, as well as instances in which individual participants diverged from this group discourse, in the context of neoliberalism. © 2011 SAGE Publications.

publication date

  • September 1, 2011

published in

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 1167

end page

  • 1193

volume

  • 43

issue

  • 3