Dem 356 - Research

CHAPTER 1

1.1INTRODUCTION Sexual thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, present throughout life, are often accentuated during adolescence. Puberty provides visible, undeniable evidence of physical maturity, obvious maleness or femaleness, and the ability to reproduce. The normal developmental task of establishing an adult sexual identity and the capacity for intimacy may be frustrated by the prolonged interval between attainment of reproductive maturity and social permission to express one's sexuality as an adult. Numerous surveys have suggested increased sexual experimentation by increasing numbers of teenagers at younger ages each year. Often the outcome of this behaviour can have adverse consequences such as unplanned pregnancy and sexually acquired infections. This preliminary serves as an overview of the most burning issues concerning adolescent sexual behaviour, as a precursor to an all-out study of such behaviour at NUL. Adolescence is the period of psychosocial development beginning in the pre-teen years, usually in conjunction with pubertal onset, and extending until the individual assumes an adult role in society. More importantly, ‘it is a stage of psychosocial development and the level of cognitive maturation strongly influences each adolescent's response to any health concern, including those related to sexuality. It is even more notable to learn that, by age 17, approximately half of all adolescents have experienced sexual intercourse, some before puberty, many first at age 15 to 16. Coital frequency ranges from only once to several times a week. Sexual activity may include oral-genital or anal sex, especially as more adolescents learn about these varieties of sexual expression. Most adolescents have heterosexual relationships, although many have experimented with homosexual intimacy’ (www.stdervices.on.net). Specifically, late adolescence refers to the years past high school, from age 17 to 18 into the early twenties, and it is within this age range that most NUL adolescents are bracketed. Research shows that ‘late adolescents are physically adult, accepted as adults in their environments, and fertile. They are selfsupporting or pursuing educational or vocational training to become able to support both self and a family, have increased mobility, independence and less adult presence and protection. Their self-identity is consistent with the realities of their size, shape, and abilities and with societal limits and expectations. Late adolescents have a well-established sexual identity, usually heterosexual, and the ability to have intimate relationships that satisfy the emotional and sexual needs of both partners’ (www.stdervices.on.net). It is during this time and under these apparently conducive conditions that ‘adolescents engage in risk-taking behaviour involving driving, substance use, and/or sexual activity that may have harmful consequences, which the adolescent is neither able to anticipate nor effectively prevent. At this age, many have achieved parenthood one or more times, some are married, with or without children, and some have been divorced. Yet many have not yet reached the level of psychosocial maturity that would facilitate a healthy family life for themselves, their partners and their children’ (www.stdervices.on.net). 1

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM This research project will serve as an avenue of enquiry into the fundamental issues underlying adolescent sexuality at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). In recent times, there has been a worldwide social revolution in the awareness of the issues and controversies surrounding adolescent and, in more general terms, pre-marital sexual behaviour. In general, sexual activity has always been associated with several risks, including Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs, including HIV/AIDS), unplanned, unwanted, and in the context of this research, teenage pregnancies, with abortions being the more probable subsequence. This is particularly true of adolescents as most are not emotionally mature or financially independent. All of the aforementioned issues are, in one portion or country of the world or the other, of public interest and concern. Lesotho is no exception, in this case with a special focus on the sexual behaviour of adolescent students of the National University of Lesotho (NUL). As a result, the past few decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in government policies (including Lesotho government polices) and programs aimed at reversing the growing trend in adolescent sexual permissiveness, and its adverse consequences upon adolescents, who are mostly naive to the ways of the world. These policies have been implemented through programs of Sex Education, promoting sexual abstinence or pre-marital sexual chastity, and the harm-reducing approach of advocating safe sex (or condom usage). Adolescent sexuality has also been given a legal aspect, by way of setting the ‘age of consent’ law that prescribes the minimum age at which a person is considered capable of legally giving ‘informed consent’ to any kind of sexual behaviour with an adult (www.wikipedia.com). The whole point is that adolescent sexuality has caused people and governments to go to extreme lengths to curb its escalating vicious cycle of events, thereby highlighting its importance as a public issue that requires speedy remedying. With NUL at the hub of Lesotho’s higher education system, and therefore its future, it is needless to say that something must be done by the university management to alter the current course of events, with regard to increasing unwanted pregnancies and prevalence of Venereal and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases among their students.

1.3 OBJECTIVES The two main objectives of this study are:  To identify factors that influence sexual behaviour at NUL.  To assess young people’s attitudes towards engaging in early sexual activity. 2

1.4 JUSTIFICATION This kind of research is very necessary as its findings might have many social policy implications for NUL and Lesotho’s government social and population policy-making. If the radical influences that motivate (risky) adolescent sexual behaviour are uncovered, such findings will advice the university of the appropriate response programs to put in place in order to curtail the infection rates of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among the students. And if, without being overly optimistic, such programs do succeed, NUL will not only be part of the solution in reducing STDs, but also in reducing infection rates by the more lethal HIV. NUL students constitute a relatively minute portion of Lesotho’s population, but they also form the crux of its future manpower requirements and success, so by managing to reduce STD infection among its students, the university will also be part of national triumph in reducing death rates (mortality) and improving public health. This particular study is also crucial as it might reveal the inherent forces causing teenage pregnancies among NUL students and abortions (induced or spontaneous) that are likely to follow such pregnancies. It is universally known that pregnancies and abortions have some associated risks and complications that may ultimately lead to, in this case, the untimely death of a student. So, by finding the causes of teenage pregnancies among NUL students can help the university in framing a suitable solution that will forestall such pregnancies and their bitter consequences. Overall, the study will highlight the important issues concerning adolescent sexual behaviour at NUL, and so will aid the university in its future planning and policy-making, especially concerning student affairs. NUL is charged with a national obligation of producing a cadre of highly trained manpower and its success in fulfilling this duty, is to some extent, limited to its success in this area of student affairs. Its victory in reducing adolescent sexual permissiveness, STD infection rates, teenage pregnancies and abortions, among its students, will produce manpower that is highly trained, healthy and socially responsible. There will also be an academic victory linked to the aforementioned in that drop-out rates (official and unofficial withdrawals) could decline, and correspondingly academic performance of students can be expected to improve. All of these victories can be achieved, but first the problems and challenges posed by adolescent sexuality at NUL should be identified, and this research will play this vital role of illuminating such problems and challenges.

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CHAPTER 2

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW This study will draw much from diverse psychiatric views and findings of the psychological and external and environmental factors on the functioning of adolescents, to assess the nature of adolescents’ sexual behaviour, their attitude towards sex and their feelings and impulses. Sociological and psychoanalytic theories and related critiques will also be the key axis around which this study is formed. Merchant and Smith (1977:6) acknowledge that theories of adolescence vary as to the emphasis placed on the internal biochemical determinants of behaviour or socio-cultural factors or on the interaction of both internal and external factors. It is therefore of paramount importance to recognise that the behaviour of adolescents is a complex phenomenon that can be influenced by, and most probably stems from, the interaction of a wide array of psychological, social and environmental factors in a continuum. In accord with this line of speculation, Semmens and Krantz (1970:23) further accentuate that, “Individuals are free to make their own decisions as to sexual behaviour and patterns. The major influences, as they make these decisions are probably their own desires, peer patterns, what they conceive to be accepted practices in their community, and ideas conveyed through the mass media.” Although it is now generally accepted that social expectations, institutions, cultural norms and mores and sexual orientation have a profound influence on the psychological behaviour of adolescents, and that this behaviour is not just the outcome of pubertal changes, Marchant and Smith (1977:6) point out that ‘nature theorists’ stress the importance of biological progression of development and suggest that environmental factors only modify this behaviour. The trend of heterosexual relationships is generally toward informality, spontaneity and intimacy outside the framework of traditional dating. The views 4

and attitudes of our generation in relation to dating, marriage and sex are a stark contrast of those prevalent in the preceding generation, who wish for young people to be safely delivered into the bonds of matrimony before initiation of any sexual activity. This is, of course, a view that is less popular of late, and teachers, priests and parents, who are die-hard proponents of pre-marital sexual chastity, continue to play this role with diminishing success. Semmens and Krantz (1970:24) also show that ‘the fear that participation in tabooed sexual activities will result in guilt and emotional disturbances which will wreck a subsequent marriage or blight one’s entire life is no longer much of that for most people’. This is suggestive of the fact that universally societies are in a transition. Furthermore, it seems the views of Semmens and Krantz are not entirely unfounded as they are shared by Marchant and Smith (1977:7) who explain adolescent problems in relation to the complexities of the changing world today where confusion is maximised for adolescents by the variety of alternatives open and the lack of a stable frame of reference. Semmens and Krantz (1970:3) are expressive of similar sentiments as they so eloquently assert, “For the first time in our history, the monopolistic position of our official sex morality has been shattered. As a society we have lost our consensus on most sex values; just as we have been a pluralistic society as far as religious and political beliefs are concerned, so have we become a pluralistic society as far as sexual morality is concerned. No value system can be automatically put forward as demanding unquestioned allegiance. Each must content in the free market place of ideas.” This rapid alteration in the way society views itself and the way it revises its value system is paralleled by a revolution of openness where issues related to sexual behaviour become increasingly articulate. “In the past, most differences of opinion about sex were covered up. Few persons – regardless of the extent to which they breached the moral codes in private – dared to do anything but pay lip service to these codes in public,” reaffirm Semmens and Krantz (1970:3). “Today almost every issue has become a matter of public controversy, and respected and respectable figures stand up in every forum to challenge almost every one of our traditional and ‘unchangeable’ beliefs about sex and marriage. We are in a process of transition, marked by tremendous conflict and controversy. Most of the sex values which in the past were universal, or were shared by all or most of the members of our society, have now become alternatives, permitting a variety of choice.” In their book, Semmens and Krantz (1970:10) quote Blaine as saying, concerning social transition and adolescent sexual behaviour, “There seems to be no thoroughly satisfactory answer to the problems presented by our instinctual sex drive. In the end we probably must be content to watch the pendulum swing from permissiveness to restrictiveness and back again, as each generation becomes dissatisfied with what it has inherited from the previous one and strives to find another answer to a problem as old as mankind itself.” This rather unsettling citation brings forth the realization that it would be less than true, at least under prevailing circumstances, to indicate to the young people existence 5

of a completely satisfactory solution for their needs and desires. It seems at best that only a compromise between the adolescents’ needs and desires and the needs of the society is feasible. Somehow there’s disparity between physical and social maturity in the natural development of adolescents, which seems to give rise to their rather irrational and disarrayed behaviour. Seidman (1960:42) supports this conjecture saying, “Whether recognized as a separate status or not, the adolescent period has one outstanding peculiarity – namely, that it is a time when the individual is attaining physical maturity without necessarily attaining social maturity.” On the other hand, Flemming (1952:45) highlights that recent observers have become more conscious of the fact that human beings are neither chiefly intellectual nor chiefly physical in their functioning, but that they are initially and continuously social in their nature – members of groups and conditioned to such membership. Individuals cannot, therefore be described fully either in terms of prevalent mental state or dominant bodily impulse. They require to be interpreted also in their relationship to other human beings and in the light of the effect upon them of these others. For instance, delinquent children and backward pupils were studied in relation to their home, their school, and their street; and it began to be recognised that part of their difficulty arose from the failure of their groups to satisfy certain of their fundamental psychological needs. This is one of the most prominent facets of this study upon which much effort will be expended because NUL students, for example, come from various social backgrounds and are tossed into a new and unfamiliar social circle in their freshmen year. It is reasonable to assume that they would try to conform to the standards and behavioural patterns of their peers. Moreover, Semmens and Krantz (1977:6) indicate that sex values differ depending on social class of a person, income influences, and religious affiliation, etc. They further enunciate that the interests and activities of young people cannot be ignored. “Those young people who are being pressured by their peers into sexual activity for which they are not prepared and which is opposed to their value system need help to become strong enough to be autonomous and resist external pressures,” they say. For instance, studies in India have shown that sexual relationships outside of marriage are not uncommon among Indian teenage boys and girls. It was also found that, by far, the best predictor of whether or not a girl would be having sex is if her friends were engaging in the same activities (www.wikipedia.com). Apart from that, it is becoming progressively clear that the mass media has a huge influence on the behaviour of young people. For example, in the United States of America the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health conducted in 2002 revealed that there is a dramatic trend toward the early initiation of sex. It was also uncovered in the study that as much as early sexual activity may be caused by a variety of factors, the media are believed to play a significant role as U.S. teenagers rank the media second only to school sex 6

education programs as the leading source of information about sex (www.wikipedia.com). “The irresponsible talk about the ‘sexual revolution’, especially in the mass media, has led many persons to overestimate the rate of change among adolescents to permissive sexual behaviour and has produced a stereotype of adolescent behaviour, which serves as an unfortunate pressure on those young persons who are not ready for permissive behaviour,’’ say Semmens and Krantz (1977:10) abrasively. In addition, Semmens and Krantz (1977:37) further argue that ‘knowledge of the extent to which the formerly tabooed activities are engaged in by others has diminished feelings of guilt. Also accompanying the changes noted above have been the proliferation of discussions and published materials concerning sexual questions and practices. The prevalence and significance of masturbation, of the extent of extramarital intercourse, of homosexual experiences, and other sexual expressions are quite freely examined in the mass media. As a consequence a person who has engaged in these experiences certainly need consider himself as neither unique nor aberrant. The mass media also uses sex to sell everything from beauty aids to automobiles by elevating sex as the magical key to success’. Moving ahead, Semmens and Krantz (1977:3) cite the theories of H.T. Christensen and other researchers as they demonstrated that the values that people hold affect not only the sexual behaviour they engage in, but also the consequences of this behaviour. Apparently Christensen’s cross-cultural studies, particularly, have clearly shown that the same kind of action may have widely differing consequences in different cultures and that the most damaging behaviour occurs where there is the greatest discrepancy between a person’s behaviour and his value system. Thus, in a permissive culture like Denmark was found the least negative consequences of premarital sexual behaviour; in the highly restrictive Mormon culture of Utah in the United States, was found the greatest negative consequences resulting from premarital sexual behaviour. Given the fact that Basotho’s culture, like most African cultures, is extremely restrictive, it’s not hard to tell what the probable consequences premarital sexual behaviour for NUL students could be.

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY AND DATA ANALYSIS

3.1 Hypotheses  Residential background of NUL students influences their sexual behaviour  Peer groups have an impact on adolescent sexuality of students at NUL 7

 At NUL, a students’ social background affects his/her sexual behaviour  A student’s religious affiliation is a determinant of their premarital sexual behaviour

3.2 Research Design and Sampling Statistical (Probability) sampling techniques will be employed to select a representative sample of the students currently enrolled with the National University of Lesotho (NUL). Of note is that a sampling procedure is said to be statistical if all possible samples in the population have an equal chance or known probabilities of being selected. According to Mendenhall (1979:405) ‘statistical sampling has two purposes – namely to avoid the possibility of bias introduced by a non-random (non-representative) selection of sample elements, and to provide a probabilistic basis for the selection of a sample and to heighten the validity of inferences based on the sample’. This implies that probability samples have theoretical justification for generalization of results obtained thereof, to the rest of the population under study. In this case ‘the population under study’ comprises all the students currently enrolled with NUL. So, for this study stratified random sampling will be used to select a sample of 100 students from all NUL students. According to Yeomans (1979:123) the impracticability or impossibility of producing a satisfactory sampling frame is a very common reason to abandon simple random sampling, because a sample based upon an incomplete frame can produce the most misleading results, no matter how large a sample is selected. The sampling frame for this study is a complete list of students currently enrolled with the university. Fortunately for this study obtaining a sampling frame is practical as the required lists of male and female students can be easily accessed from the office of the Dean of Student Affairs (DSA) or alternatively the Academic Office, both of which have a database of all students enrolled with NUL. Primarily two strata appropriate for this study will be the male and female students currently at NUL. Each of the two strata will be represented in the sample in proportion to its size and homogeneity in the population. More importantly, either a table of random numbers or a computer generation of random numbers will be used to select the students for each of the two strata.

3.3 Data collection procedures A structured questionnaire is going to be used in order to obtain the relevant data from a randomly selected sample of male and female students. It will be structured in such a way that pre-coded or multiple choice questions will be used to capture the required information. Owing to financial and time constraints, the interviews will be self-administered, meaning that the questionnaires will be delivered to the selected students with a view to collection on a designated deadline agreed upon by both the enumerators and the students in the sample. Furthermore, due to the sensitivity of the questions, a face-to-face interview might defeat the purpose of this study by yielding invalid and unreliable responses, just by virtue of the interviewees not feeling the freedom to disclose 8

such private and personal information to the interviewers. This deems a selfadministered questionnaire as the best approach to use for this study, especially because the enumerators in this case will themselves be students.

3.4 Data analysis The data from the research will be analysed by total, age and sex. That is, it might be interesting to analyse the results of the study in terms of males and females, jointly and separately. Tabulations and cross-tabulations of results will be an invaluable tool upon which we will rely for grouping the results accordingly so as to identify the age and sex specific determinants and patterns of adolescent sexual behaviour at NUL. As such, detailed analyses of the information contained in the tables will follow immediately below such tables. Also various statistical techniques like contingency table analyses (analysis of categorical data) will be used to test the hypotheses of relationships between certain variables of interest. Measures of central tendency will also be used to estimate, the population parameters like the average and median ages of first sexual encounter. Rates, ratios, proportions and percentages based on the results will also be used to provide a comprehensive analysis of the findings. On the basis of the sample results, statistically sound generalisations of the population parameters of the sexual behaviour of young people at NUL will be made. We will also rely heavily on qualitative data analysis techniques to fully analyse the data.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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Coleman J.S. (1963).The Adolescent and Society. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe. Flemming C.M. (1952). Adolescence: Its Social Psychology. London, N.W. 10: Lowe and Brydone (Printers) Ltd. Kirkendall L.A. (1961) .Premarital Intercourse and Interpersonal Relationships. New York: Julian Press. Marchant H. And Smith H.M. ( 1977). Adolescent Girls at risk. Oxford: Pergamon Press Ltd. Mendenhall W. (1979). Introduction to Probability and Statistics: fifth edition. North Scituate, Massachussetts: Duxbury Press. Reubenson B. and Levit M. (1972). Youth and Social Change. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne University Press. Seidman J.M. (1960). The Adolescent – A Book of Readings. New York: Holt, Reinhard and Winston, Inc. Semmens J.P. and Krantz K.E. (1970). The Adolescent Experience: A conselling guide to Social and Sexual Behaviour. London: Collier-Macmillan Limited. Yeomans K.A. (1968). Statistics for the Social Scientist 2: Applied Statistics. Bristol: Western Printing Services Ltd. www.stdervices.on.net www.wikipedia.com

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