NCJ Number
216705
Journal
Journal of Adolescent Research Volume: 22 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2007 Pages: 3-31
Date Published
January 2007
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This study explored the type and amount of parental sexual communication recalled by Asian-American college students.
Abstract
In general, the results indicated that Asian-American families communicated about sexuality in nonverbal and implicit ways. Communication about sexuality was less frequent from fathers and in homes with language barriers. Most participants recalled receiving minimal sexual information from parents on topics ranging from biological processes to potential sexual outcomes. This was particularly true among daughters and among families having less acculturated parents. Sons, however, frequently reported receiving no information about any sexual topic. In cases where both daughters and sons received sexual messages from parents, daughters reported receiving more prohibitive messages than sons. Likewise, participants from religious families were more likely to report receiving messages about the inappropriateness of premarital sex and about sex as a taboo topic. Participants were 165 Asian-American college students who were recruited from psychology courses at a midwestern university. Participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing their level of religiosity, intergeneration language discrepancies, perceived parental acculturation, amount and types of parental sexual messages, and parent’s education level. Data analysis mixed statistical analyses, including independent-sample t-tests, with qualitative analyses about the nature of parental sexual messages. Future studies should examine how nonparental family members, such as grandparents and siblings, contribute to the sexual socialization process among Asian-American youth. Tables, references