The great majority of teenage pregnancies are unintended and are the result of inadequate or nonexistent
contraception, indicating that knowledge about reproduction and access to contraception are
both essential factors in preventing unintended adolescent pregnancy. In a survey of more than 3000
Australian apprentices aged between 15 and 24 years, Grunseit (2004) found that 23 per cent of the
sample reportedly had not used contraceptives the first time they had sex, an incidence that was similar
for males and females, and which approximates the incidence in other developed countries. Moore and
Rosenthal (2006) have identified a lack of basic sexual knowledge in Australian teenagers, which poses
a significant barrier to contraceptive use. As well, adolescents may reject using contraceptives or use
them irregularly, because using contraceptives implies intentionality and preparedness for sex, which
can induce guilt feelings. Other barriers to contraceptive use include expense or unavailability when
needed, perceived messiness and pleasure reduction and anxiety due to inexperience in their use. Feelings
of fatalism and powerlessness can also be involved (Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 1998; Moore &
Rosenthal, 2006).
Some teenage pregnancies are intentional, rather than accidental, including the notorious ‘mass’ pregnancy
involving 17 girls aged under 16 years at Gloucester High School, Massachusetts, which recorded
four times the national rate of teenage pregnancies in June 2008. Girls at the school ostensibly expressed
disappointment when their school pregnancy tests came back negative (Kingsbury, 2008). Planning a
pregnancy during adolescence may be linked to an idealised image of pregnancy and parenting, with
teenage mothers regarding pregnancy as a way to crystallise their identities. Motherhood seems to promise
a secure adult role, apparently helping adolescents to escape aversive role confusion. Other explanations
include a baby being a vector for unconditional love, which adolescents might feel is lacking in their lives
(Queensland Health, 2004). Moreover, media portrayals of teenage motherhood have the effect of promoting
the romanticisation of adolescent pregnancy, such as the popular MTV reality TV shows 16 and
Pregnant and Teen Mom.
Many researchers have looked beyond individual factors, such as a lack of sexual knowledge, and
misguided motivations to find wider familial and societal factors implicated in teenage pregnancy risk.
Adolescent girls who live in communities with high rates of poverty and who are raised by single
parents with low levels of education are at higher risk of becoming pregnant. Life experiences associated
with poverty, such as alienation at school, being surrounded by role models of single parenthood and
unemployment, and lack of educational opportunities and stable career prospects, all tend to lower
the perceived costs of early motherhood (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1994; Coley & Chase-Lansdale,
1998). So, programs to prevent teenage pregnancy must be responsive to adolescents’ life contexts. For
teenagers who are at high risk because of their life circumstances, programs that include medical care
and contraceptive services, social services, family and educational support, as well as school-linked
parenting education appear to be most effective (Hardy & Zabin, 1991).
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
What do today’s adolescents think about adolescent sex, minority sexual orientations and teenage pregnancy?
In what ways have attitudes changed since their parents and grandparents were young? Interview
several people of different generations to gauge generational changes in attitudes. What generational
changes do you detect? What are the upsides and downsides of these generational changes?
CHAPTER 11 Psychosocial development in adolescence 627
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MULTICULTURAL VIEW
Adolescence and the development of ethnic identity
Thousands of Australians gathered to hear the
historic apology of then prime minister Kevin Rudd on
13 February 2008.
An ethnic identity — the sense of belonging to a
particular cultural group—comprises an important
aspect of identity development (Erikson, 1968).
The incorporation of this domain into personal
identity is potentially less problematic for mainstream
adolescents in multicultural societies, such
as the United States, Australia and New Zealand,
who effortlessly identify with mainstream culture.
For example, in Australia adolescents of British
descent may simply think of themselves as Australian
and make no particular reference to their
cultural roots in establishing their personal identity.
However, adolescents from ethnic minority
groups may face an additional challenge, having
to establish a specific and distinctive ethnic
identity that encompasses the culture of the
country in which they or their parents or more
distant forebears were born (Phinney & Alipuria, 1990; Phinney & Ong, 2007). In meeting this challenge,
they must reconcile their ethnic values and beliefs with the beliefs and values of the mainstream
culture that surrounds them. Therefore, many North American, Australian and New Zealand adolescents
are faced with the question of the extent to which they identify with the mainstream culture or
that of their ethnic minority group; for example, the Mexican, Sudanese, Italian, African-American or
Islander community. Thus, ethnic identity has been conceptualised as varying along a continuum, ranging
from an unexamined ethnic identity to a fully developed or achieved ethnic identity (Yasui, Dorham, &
Dishion, 2004).
Phinney (1996) maintains that adolescents progress through stages of ethnic identity development that
are similar to Erikson’s and Marcia’s global models of personal identity development. So, forming an ethnic
identity involves the same processes as forming a religious or political identity (Seaton, Scottham &
Sellers, 2006). However, researchers have found that exploration of ethnic identity typically occurs later in
adolescence than other identity domains — at a time when individuals are exposed to more diverse cultural
experiences; for example, when they are at university (French, Seidman, Allen, & Aber, 2006). As well,
the stages or status categories of ethnic identity do not necessarily coincide with developmental progress
in other domains of identity; such as vocational identity. Societal attitudes and barriers can make this process
problematic, and the extent to which adolescents develop an ethnic minority identity is influenced
by the cultural views held by mainstream society.
The traditional cultural assimilation model widely applied in earlier years in the United States, Australia
and New Zealand dictated that minority culture identities be assimilated into the mainstream or majority
culture. Previous policies in Australia relating to the Stolen Generation reflected this model, with Aboriginal
children taken from their families and brought up isolated from their cultural roots in Anglo-Australian
families or in institutions. Thus, the cultural assimilation model denigrates and devalues cultures other
than the mainstream culture.
Ethnic minority status, coupled with discriminatory attitudes and practices, such as those encapsulated
by the cultural assimilation model, can impose an additional crisis on minority adolescents in the process
of identity formation. Prejudice inherent in mainstream society may induce a state of identity foreclosure,
with minority adolescents less prepared to explore their culturally devalued ethnicity (Markstrom-Adams
& Adams, 1995; Romero & Roberts, 2003). Under such circumstances, it seems easier and more adaptive
to identify completely with the mainstream culture. In these cases, adolescents deny their parents’
ethnic values, and avoid embarking on an exploration of ethnic roles and origins characterised by ethnic
moratorium.
Nonetheless, despite wider societal values, parental attitudes can be equally important in how much
minority adolescents value and model ethnic minority culture, and therefore incorporate it into their
628 PART 5 Adolescence
Hoffnung, M. (2018). Lifespan development, 4th australasian edition. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
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personal identity. Research has found that the more parents teach their children the language, cultural
practices, and history of their ethnic group, the more likely they are to develop a favourable ethnic identity
as adolescents (Phinney, Romero, Nava, & Huang, 2001, Phinney & Ong, 2007).
In recent years, political and social attitudes towards minority cultures have changed, with a recognition
and accommodation of minority cultures in countries such as Australia and New Zealand. The pluralistic
society model espouses diverse and equal cultures, preserving the ethnic heritage and identity of minority
individuals as equal in importance to the mainstream culture, while the bicultural model maintains that
individuals can exist within two cultures and can take on a dual identity (Phinney, 2003). These changing
societal attitudes are having a significant impact on ethnic identity, with biculturalism increasingly adopted
as an ethnic identity. For example, at the turn of the millennium, nearly seven million North Americans
identified themselves as bicultural (Schmitt, 2001).
Ethnic identity may not simply depend on facilitation by wider societal attitudes, particularly for
aboriginal peoples. Here, resolving the clash of traditional and modern values is pivotal. For a number
of Aboriginal adolescents in remote areas of Australia, identity achievement is still traditionally marked by
a ceremony of pubertal initiation, in which individuals pass from childhood to full adult tribal status. For
example, in the ‘Mandiwala’ initiation ceremony of the Yanyuwa people from Borroloola near the Gulf of
Carpentaria, boys are taken from their mothers, secluded away from the settlement, and are initiated into
the tribal secrets of the adult world (Orucu, 2006). Such ceremonies may also involve circumcision and
ritualised death and rebirth, in which the former childhood identity is left behind and the new adult identity
emerges (Ronald & Berndt, 1999).
Through initiation, adolescents in traditional societies avoid the protracted dialectical crisis thatWestern
adolescents undergo, with the brief but intense experiences of initiation imposing their tribal adult ‘self’
in a form of cultural foreclosure. Despite the imposition of a traditional tribal identity, assimilating their
Aboriginality as an ethnic identity can be particularly difficult for Aboriginal adolescents. In the transitional
societies found in remote areas of the Northern Territory of Australia, adolescents may find themselves suspended
halfway between traditional belief systems and modern Western values, experiencing an inherent
incompatibility between the values imposed by tribal elders and those instilled by the mainstream culture.
This increases the risk of identity diffusion among transitional youth in such cultures, with a concurrent
risk of antisocial activities and personal adjustment problems; for example, petrol sniffing is rife in some
remote Aboriginal communities. The theme of the clash between traditional and mainstream identity and
its aftermath are sensitively explored in the film Yolngu Boy, reviewed by Villella (2002), who describes the
self-destructive death of one of the Aboriginal boys in the film as ‘a metaphor for an unreconciliation of
past and present, a severed identity’.
While a diffused cultural identity may be damaging to the adjustment of adolescents in cultural minorities,
by the same token, an achieved ethnic identity is not essential to psychological wellbeing (Phinney,
1996). Many individuals from ethnic minorities might remain foreclosed, conforming unquestioningly and
quite happily to the mainstream culture throughout their lives. This is often the case for children from other
cultures who are adopted at an early age by parents from a mainstream culture. These individuals find
questions relating to ethnic identity exploration quite strange. For example, South-East Asian adoptees
may have no interest at all in finding their cultural roots or families of origin in their country of birth, simply
because they identify completely with the mainstream Australian culture of their adoptive parents (Donnet-
Jones, personal communication, 2008).
Nonetheless, foreclosure into a mainstream ethnic identity has been a highly negative experience for
many members of Australia’s Aboriginal Stolen Generation. Many of these individuals have suffered as
a result of ongoing and unresolved ethnic identity issues. The Australian government acknowledged the
pain, suffering and hurt of the Stolen Generation and their descendants in a formal apology delivered by
then prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2008.
Research has demonstrated that a well-integrated ethnic identity is associated with positive outcomes,
such as resilience against discrimination, higher self-esteem and academic success (Lee, 2005; Umana-
Taylor, 2004; Yasui et al., 2004). This research echoes the earlier findings of an Australian researcher,
who found many well-adjusted adolescents — the children of first-generation European migrants —
had successfully integrated a strong ethnic identity into the other aspects of their personal identity
(Taft, 1985).
CHAPTER 11 Psychosocial development in adolescence 629
Hoffnung, M. (2018). Lifespan development, 4th australasian edition. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Created from scu on 2020-05-03 03:25:01.
Copyright © 2018. Wiley. All rights reserved.
I move:
That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human
history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished
chapter in our nation’s history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs
of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have
inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their
families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families
left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and
communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say
sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which
it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
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