Dissertation Research: Social Construction of Gender Idenity in South Africa

本项目由美国国家科学基金会社会、行为与经济研究部和国际学部共同资助，涉及埃默里大学一名人类学学生的论文研究。学生将调查讲科萨语的南非土著青少年与他们的父母和其他成年一代成员之间的关系。以10-19岁青少年的家庭为研究对象，学生将采访年轻人和他们的父母对青少年和成年的定义如何随着宗教、社会和经济环境的变化而变化。该学生将首先在开普敦郊区两个具有不同社会经济特征的地点调查大约100个家庭，然后对不同社会背景下的青少年进行结构化访谈、个人案例研究和深入观察。重点将放在青少年在男女亲密行为、避孕药具使用和青少年怀孕方面的文化意义上。这项研究很重要，因为它将促进我们对导致获得性免疫缺乏症和青少年怀孕的行为背后的文化含义的理解。提高我们对青少年行为来源的认识，将是设计改变这种行为、减少疾病流行和青少年怀孕的计划的重要一步。

This project, supported both by the Social, Behavioral and Economic Research and the International Divisions of NSF, involves the dissertation research of an anthropology student from Emory University. The student will investigate the relationships between indigenous Xhosa-speaking South African adolescents and their parents and other members of the adult generation. Focusing on households containing adolescent s aged 10-19, the student will interview how young peoples' and their parents' definitions of adolescence versus adulthood vary in light of changing religious, social and economic circumstances. The student will first survey about 100 households in two sites with different socio-economic characteristics in a large suburb of Cape Town, and go on to conduct structured interviews, individual case studies and intensive observation of adolescents in different social contexts. The focus will be on the cultural meanings of adolescence in relation to male and female intimate practices, contraceptive use and adolescent pregnancy. This research is important because it will advance our understanding of the cultural meanings behind behavior causing acquired immuno-deficiency disease and adolescent pregnancy. Improving our knowledge of the sources of adolescent behavior will be an important step towards designing programs to change that behavior and reduce the prevalence of disease and adolescent pregnancies.