University of Cape Coast, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Cape Coast, Ghana.
University of Pittsburgh, Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine. PA, U.S.
Afr J Reprod Health. 2022 Dec;26(12s):146-160. doi: 10.29063/ajrh2022/v26i12s.16.
Young people's views on sexuality in sub-Saharan Africa are poorly understood. We know little about what they think of their sexual upbringing and how it influences their sexual and reproductive health decisions and behaviors. Guided by feminism and an intersectionality framework, the current study uses narratives from purposefully sampled adolescents and parents from rural households within Adaklu District, one of the eighteen districts in the Volta Region of Ghana, to examine parents' and young people's perceptions of young adolescents' acquisition of sexuality knowledge, their sexual encounters and experiences, and the overall dynamics in educating young adolescents aged 16-19 years about sex. Specifically, we explored the types of sexuality issues parents discussed with their wards at home, and where appropriate, analyzed the inherent gender disparities in these discussions. Generally, parents agree that young people should know about sex. However, they emphasized that sexuality education should be age-specific and should be guided by cultural values and religious faith. Adolescents' exposure to multiple sources, including parental upbringing, the media, and information from peers, determines the extent they either engage or not engage in sexual activities. Parent-adolescent conversations were structured along gender lines, emphasizing adolescent girls' needs due to their perceived vulnerability compared to boys. While some of the findings support earlier views in terms of a very conservative, morally scripted way of training young people, it also suggests that young people's sexual upbringing is not as repressive as previous studies would make it appear. Young people keep pushing the boundaries as they develop agencies to learn about sex from multiple sources. Therefore, policies seeking to promote young people's sexual and reproductive rights in Ghana should pay close attention to what young people know about sex and how they know what they know, recognizing that their knowledge-seeking is part of human development and not inherently "bad".
撒哈拉以南非洲年轻人的性观念了解甚少。我们对他们如何看待自己的性教育，以及性教育如何影响他们的性与生殖健康决策和行为知之甚少。本研究以女性主义和交叉性框架为指导，利用加纳沃尔特地区十八个区之一的阿达克拉区农村家庭中有意抽样的青少年和家长的叙述，来考察家长和年轻人对青少年获取性知识、性经历和性体验的看法，以及对 16-19 岁青少年进行性教育的整体动态。具体而言，我们探讨了家长在家中与子女讨论的性问题类型，并在适当情况下分析了这些讨论中固有的性别差异。一般来说，家长们认为年轻人应该了解性知识。然而，他们强调，性教育应该是针对特定年龄段的，并且应该以文化价值观和宗教信仰为指导。青少年从多个来源，包括父母教养、媒体和同龄人那里获取信息，决定了他们是否参与性活动的程度。父母与青少年的对话是按照性别划分的，强调了由于与男孩相比，少女被认为更脆弱，因此少女的需求。虽然部分发现与之前的观点一致，即非常保守、以道德为导向的方式来培养年轻人，但也表明年轻人的性教育并不像之前的研究那样具有压迫性。随着年轻人从多个来源发展机构来了解性知识，他们不断挑战界限。因此，加纳旨在促进年轻人性与生殖权利的政策应该密切关注年轻人对性的了解以及他们如何了解自己所知道的知识，认识到他们的求知欲是人类发展的一部分，而不是天生的“坏”。
