Risk Behaviour in Adolescence: Patterns, Determinants and Consequences

✍ Scribed by Matthias Richter

• Publisher: Vs Verlag
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 124
• Series: VS Research
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Adolescents are generally thought to be healthy. However, adolescent risk behaviours, such as substance use, a poor diet or early sexual activity, are topics that keep generating high academic and media interest. Despite considerable explanatory efforts, not much is known yet about the proximate and distal determinants as well as the psychosocial and health-related consequences of risk behaviour in adolescence. The study is among the first to systematically examine the antecedents and consequences of risk behaviour from a comparative perspective over time and across countries. Matthias Richter presents findings from several studies and extends current theoretical and empirical knowledge on adolescent risk behaviour. This book is valuable reading for academics, practitioners and policy makers in a range of disciplines: sociology, psychology, educational sciences, public health and nursing sciences, with a special focus on adolescent risk behaviour.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
List of figures......Page 10
List of tables......Page 12
1.1 Background......Page 16
1.2 Aims of the study and research questions......Page 19
1.3 Structure and content of the volume......Page 23
2.1 What is risk behaviour?......Page 26
2.2 Risk behaviour in adolescence: a general framework......Page 27
2.2.1 Risk behaviour as reaction to developmental tasks......Page 29
2.2.2 Functions of risk behaviour......Page 31
2.2.3 Integrative model of risk behaviour......Page 33
2.3 Determinants of adolescent risk behaviour......Page 35
2.3.1 Age and gender......Page 36
2.3.2 Socio-economic status......Page 38
2.3.3 Peer and school context......Page 40
2.4 Consequences of risk behaviour......Page 43
3.1 Research context......Page 46
3.2 The “Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC)” study......Page 47
3.3 Data collection procedures and samples......Page 48
3.3.1 International data......Page 49
3.3.2 German data......Page 51
3.3.3 Northrhine-Westphalian data......Page 52
3.4 Instrument and variables......Page 53
3.4.2 Parental and ‘own’ socio-economic status......Page 54
Family affluence......Page 55
Parental occupation......Page 56
Academic achievement......Page 57
Peer factors......Page 58
3.4.4 Health outcomes......Page 59
Socio-economic determinants and patterns of adolescent risk behaviour......Page 61
Consequences of adolescent risk behaviour......Page 62
4.1 Age and gender differences and patterns of risk behaviour in adolescence......Page 64
Age and gender differences in risk behaviour in Germany......Page 65
Age and gender patterns over time......Page 67
Age and gender patterns across countries......Page 70
Socio-economic differences in risk behaviour in Germany......Page 74
Trends in socio-economic differences in risk behaviour......Page 79
Socio-economic differences in risk behaviour across countries......Page 82
4.3 The role of social contexts for adolescent risk behaviour......Page 86
Consequences of risk behaviour in Germany......Page 89
Consequences of risk behaviour across countries......Page 92
5.1 Summary of the results......Page 96
Implications for research......Page 100
Health promotion implications......Page 103
References......Page 108