Date of Award

2012

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to shed light on Latino/a parents' perceptions and attitudes about adolescent pregnancy. This study aims to reveal how parental perceptions and attitudes may impact parental communication with their children about teen pregnancy. Considering that parents play in important role in adolescent pregnancy prevention, this research study attempts to shed light on the nature of how parents perceive adolescent pregnancy and communication about teen pregnancy. The goal of this study was to answer the following two questions: 1.What are some of the variables that influence how Latino/a parents of high school students at an urban school perceive teen pregnancy? 2. How do perceptions of teen pregnancy influence how Latino/parents of high school students at an urban school communicate with their children about adolescent pregnancy?

Given that this study seeks to provide an understanding of parental perceptions which may influence teen pregnancy, qualitative methods with a phenomenological approach were used. Focus group discussions were conducted with Latino/a parents at a public high school in Chicago in order to obtain a contextual understanding of parents' perceptions and attitudes toward teen pregnancy. A total of eight themes emerged from the data set. Four theoretical constructs were developed from the identified themes.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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