Characteristics of parent-child communication and its relationship to adolescents' exposure to and understanding of televised sexuality / Sarah Sayeed.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Sayeed, Sarah.

Contributor:

Hornik, Robert, advisor.

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--Communication.

Communication--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Communication.

Communication--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

vii, 279 pages ; 29 cm

Production:

1998.

Summary:

Prior research has shown that adolescents gain knowledge about sexuality from parents, peers, and television, and that this knowledge is associated, even if moderately, with some adolescent sexuality attitudes and behaviors. Among the goals of this research is to describe parents' general orientation when they talk with children, how they converse about sexuality, and specifically the guidance they provide about televised sexuality. Another goal is to determine whether such communication has consequences for exposure to and understanding of sexuality depictions. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among high school students through three sites (n = 216), and data were analyzed using multivariate and logistic regression. Among the findings is that controlling for demographic factors, family communication orientation predicts whether conversations about sexuality and television are open and supportive, or are more directed towards conforming to parents' own attitudes and values. Parents' critical commentary about televised romance depictions in turn affects some of their children's judgements about realism, similarity, and instructional value of such portrayals. Although the effects of judgements upon attitudes and behavior were not examined due to data limitations, the results suggest that parental involvement in the child's television watching can help foster critical thinking about televised depictions of sexuality.

Notes:

Supervisor: Robert Hornik.

Thesis (Ph.D. in Communication) -- University of Pennsylvania, 1998.

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

University Microfilms order no.: 99-13516.

OCLC:

187478149