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

研究生梅根·c·哈雷（Meghan C. Halley）将在吉尔·e·科尔宾（Jill E. Korbin）博士的指导下，进行人种学和比较研究，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。姆特瓦拉的农村地区是坦桑尼亚为数不多的仍广泛实行青少年入会仪式的地区之一。这些仪式被称为女孩的unyago和男孩的jando，为年轻人提供关于性别角色和家庭生活（包括生育）的明确指导。尽管这些仪式有着悠久的历史，但最近在这些仪式本身以及发生这些仪式的社会、政治和经济背景方面的变化，引发了关于这些仪式在塑造年轻人行为方面所起作用的争议。通过以人为中心的青年入会过程的民族志，研究人员将探讨个人如何理解、解释和利用在unyago和jando讨论的概念、价值和意义。她还将利用一个系统的、比较的框架来研究这些仪式与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青少年的生殖健康知识、态度和行为。这项研究的重要之处在于，它有可能改善社会科学理论，即关于在一般情况下形成青少年文化适应的显着因素，以及在这一过程中青少年启蒙实践的转变作用。由于unyago和jando等传统做法遇到了对青少年生殖健康的新关切，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，以解决这些关切。

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.