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Urban high school students’ perspectives about sexual health decision-making: the role of school culture and identity

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Abstract

Studies across fields such as science education, health education, health behavior, and curriculum studies identify a persistent gap between the aims of the school curriculum and its impact on students’ thinking and acting about the real-life decisions that affect their lives. The present study presents a different story from this predominant pattern in the literature. Through a year-long ethnographic investigation of a health-focused New York City public high school’s HIV/AIDS and sex education program, this study illustrates a case in which 20 12th grade students respond positively to their education on these topics and largely assert that school significantly influences their perspectives and actions related to sexual health decision-making. This paper presents the following interpretation of this positive influence: school culture influences these students’ perspectives and decisions around sexual health by contributing to the formation of students’ identities. This paper further shows how science learning in particular becomes important for students in relation to decision-making when it is linked to issues of identity. These findings suggest that, in addition to attending to the design of classroom curriculum, HIV/AIDS and sex education researchers and curriculum developers (as well as those in science education focusing on other controversial science topics) might also explore the kinds of relational and school-wide factors that potentially influence students’ identities, decisions, and responses to school learning.

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Correspondence to Jennie S. Brotman.

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Lead Editor: M. Espinet

Appendix

Appendix

Focus group protocols

Questions about learning:

  1. 1.

    When I say HIV/AIDS, what are the first three things that come into your mind (write down on post-its)?

    1. a.

      Does anyone want to share either something they wrote or anything else about what comes to mind when you think about HIV/AIDS?

  2. 2.

    How would you explain HIV/AIDS to someone who has never heard about it?

  3. 3.

    Tell me about an especially vivid memory you have of learning about HIV/AIDS.

    1. a.

      Prompt as needed:

      1. i.

        What do you remember learning (ask for more specifics about situation)?

      2. ii.

        Why do you think it was so memorable? What was memorable about it?

  4. 4.

    Tell me about the earliest memory you have of learning about HIV/AIDS.

    1. a.

      Prompt as needed:

      1. i.

        What do you remember learning (ask for more specifics about situation)?

  5. 5.

    What other memories do you have of learning about HIV/AIDS or experiences related to HIV/AIDS?

    1. a.

      Prompt as needed for how and what they learn from the examples they bring up.

  6. 6.

    If they have not already come up in discussion, prompt with: What memories do you have of learning about HIV/AIDS from:

    1. a.

      Family?

    2. b.

      Friends/peers?

    3. c.

      Religion?

    4. d.

      Cultural communities?

    5. e.

      Media/News?

    6. f.

      Popular culture?

    7. g.

      Internet?

    8. h.

      Advertisements?

    9. i.

      Personal experiences?

    10. j.

      Other adults?

    11. k.

      School? Classes? Social Workers? Teachers?

    12. l.

      After school programs?

  7. 7.

    Tell me (more) about learning about HIV/AIDS in school.

    1. a.

      Prompt as needed:

      1. i.

        Tell me about an especially vivid memory you have of learning about HIV/AIDS in school.

      2. ii.

        What else stands out about your learning experiences?

      3. iii.

        What classes/grades have you learned about HIV/AIDS in?

      4. iv.

        What did you learn? What kinds of things did you do?

      5. v.

        What has it been like to learn about HIV/AIDS in school?

      6. vi.

        What’s an uncomfortable moment you can remember?

      7. vii.

        A useful moment? Something you liked?

      8. viii.

        A moment where you learned something?

      9. ix.

        Something you thought wasn’t useful? Something you didn’t like?

      10. x.

        What do you think people in your class thought about it? Did anyone ever talk about it outside of class? What did they say?

      11. xi.

        Probe for specifics about these experiences based on participant observation

Questions about decision-making:

  1. 1.

    How do you think high school students decide whether or not to have sex?

  2. 2.

    How do you think high school students decide whether or not to use condoms (/have safe sex)?

  3. 3.

    How do you think high school students decide whether or not to talk to their partners about using condoms (/safe sex)?

  4. 4.

    How do you think high school students decide whether or not to get tested for HIV/AIDS?

  5. 5.

    How do you think high school students decide whether or not to talk to their partners about getting tested for HIV/AIDS?

  6. 6.

    What other kinds of decisions do high school students have to make about these issues?

    1. a.

      For each of the above scenarios, prompt as needed:

      1. i.

        What do they think about?

      2. ii.

        What goes through their heads when deciding?

      3. iii.

        What kinds of things affect their decisions?

      4. iv.

        What has the biggest affect on their decisions?

  7. 7.

    How do you think school learning influences high school students’ decisions (at this school)?

    1. a.

      Ask specifically about what they took away from 9th, 11th, and 12th health/science grade classes, if they don’t come up.

  8. 8.

    What do you think would make school learning more relevant to your lives and decisions/more influential?

    1. a.

      Is there anything you wanted to learn about but didn’t in school? What was missing?

  9. 9.

    Is there anything else you’d like to say about this topic?

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Brotman, J.S., Mensah, F.M. Urban high school students’ perspectives about sexual health decision-making: the role of school culture and identity. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 8, 403–431 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-012-9451-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-012-9451-x

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