Dissertation Research: The Role of Adolescent Initiation Rituals in Shaping Youth Behavior In Rural Tanzania

论文研究：青少年启蒙仪式在塑造坦桑尼亚农村青少年行为中的作用

• 批准号: 0850672
• 负责人: Jill Korbin
• 金额: $ 1.5万
• 依托单位: Case Western Reserve University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-04-15 至 2010-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0850672&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Role; Adolescent; Initiation

Graduate student Meghan C. Halley, with the guidance of Dr. Jill E. Korbin, will undertake ethnographic and comparative research examining the role of adolescent initiation rituals in shaping adolescent behavior in rural Mtwara, Tanzania. The rural district of Mtwara is one of only a few regions in Tanzania in which adolescent initiation rituals are still widely practiced. Referred to as unyago for girls and jando for boys, these rituals provide young people with explicit instruction on gender roles and family life, including reproduction. Despite the long history of these rituals, recent changes both in the practices themselves and in the social, political, and economic contexts in which they occur have fueled controversy over the role of these practices in shaping youth behavior. Through person-centered ethnography of youths' experiences of the initiation process, the researcher will explore how individuals understand, interpret, and utilize the concepts, values, and meanings discussed in unyago and jando. She will also utilize a systematic, comparative framework to examine the interaction between these rituals and other underlying biopsychological, environmental, economic, and cultural factors that may influence youths' reproductive health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. This research is important for its potential to improve social science theory regarding the salient factors shaping enculturation during adolescence in general, as well as the shifting role of adolescent initiation practices within this process. As traditional practices such as unyago and jando meet with emerging concerns over adolescent reproductive health, in-depth, systematic examination of the role of such practices in shaping youth behavior is necessary to address these concerns.

研究生Meghan C. Halley在Jill E.科尔宾将进行民族志和比较研究，研究坦桑尼亚姆特瓦拉农村青少年入会仪式在塑造青少年行为方面的作用。 姆特瓦拉农村地区是坦桑尼亚少数几个仍广泛举行青少年入会仪式的地区之一。这些仪式对女孩称为unyago，对男孩称为jando，为年轻人提供关于性别角色和家庭生活，包括生殖的明确指导。 尽管这些仪式有着悠久的历史，但最近这些习俗本身以及它们发生的社会、政治和经济背景的变化引发了关于这些习俗在塑造青年行为方面的作用的争议。 透过以人为中心的民族志，记录青少年成长过程中的经验，研究者将探讨个人如何理解、诠释和运用unyago和jando所讨论的概念、价值观和意义。她还将利用一个系统的比较框架来研究这些仪式和其他潜在的生物心理，环境，经济和文化因素之间的相互作用，这些因素可能会影响年轻人的生殖健康知识，态度和行为。 这项研究是重要的，它的潜力，以改善社会科学理论的显着因素，塑造在青春期的文化融入一般，以及在这个过程中的青少年启蒙实践中的角色转变。由于unyago和jando等传统做法遇到了新出现的对青少年生殖健康的关注，因此有必要深入、系统地审查这些做法在塑造青年行为方面的作用，以解决这些问题。