Young people’s use of ‘peer pressure/normalization’ as discursive resources to justify gendered youth sexualities: implications for Life Orientation sexuality education programmes

Jearey-Graham, Nicola; Macleod, Catriona I

Title: Young people’s use of ‘peer pressure/normalization’ as discursive resources to justify gendered youth sexualities: implications for Life Orientation sexuality education programmes
Creator: Jearey-Graham, Nicola, Macleod, Catriona I
Date: 2015
Type: text
Type: article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143749
Identifier: vital:38279
Identifier: https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
Description: ‘Peer pressure’ has been associated in the scientific literature with a range of risky sexual behaviors, thereby undermining safe sex messages delivered in Life Orientation (LO) classes. LO texts warn against peer pressure. Taking a discursive psychology perspective, we show how young people, in contrast, use the discourses of ‘peer pressure to have sex’ and ‘peer normalization of sex’ to justify youth sexual activity. Using data from focus group discussions about youth sexualities with students at a Further Education and Training College in South Africa, we show how participants outlined a need for young people to be socially recognizable through engaging in, and being able to talk about sex, and how they implicated peer norms in governing individual sexual behavior. Both discourses pointed to a gendering of sexual norms. The deployment of these discourses by young people themselves has implications for Life Orientation programmes. Nuanced engagement with ‘peer group’ narratives is indicated.
Format: pdf
Language: English
Relation: International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP), Jearey-Graham, N. and Macleod, C., 2015. Young people’s use of ‘peer pressure/normalization’ as discursive resources to justify gendered youth sexualities: Implications for Life Orientation sexuality education programmes. International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP). 9th Biennial Conference, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP) volume 2015 number 0 2015
Rights: Publisher
Rights: Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Rhodes University Proatia Statement (https://www.ru.ac.za//governance/proatia/)

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