By paul andrew bourne, M.Sc. (pending), B.Sc. (Hons), Dip. Edu.
The department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work within the Faculty of Social Science at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, recent carried out a quantitative/qualitative study of adolescents. The research was to explore urban St. Catherine adolescents’ reproductive health practices and their survivability. A group of social researchers carried out this study, and chief among them was Herbert Gayle an anthrologist. Mr. Michael Yee Shui one of the researchers presented the first aspect of the study. Among the areas of his presentation were rationale and methodology. The rationale was "the primary purpose of the study was to address the need for the development of a wellness programme designed to help urban youth to formulate effective coping strategies to deal with challenges of adolescence contextualized poverty." One of the criticisms of this rationale is it scope. It was structured so much so not as an exploratory research but a social marketing campaign. In that its "primary purpose of the study was to address the need for development …" That in and of itself suggest a remedy of an issue that has already being established as against unearthing pertinent information from a study to which will in the future address the social concern that arose from the investigation. In addition to that, critique was that the presenter failed to provide a theoretical background that led the team of researcher in their quest for knowledge. Instead, he purported that the parish of St. Catherine was chosen because:
(i) "It was the second largest population in Jamaica, with the highest
rate of population growth";
(ii) "The parish is under-researched";
(iii) "Portmore has a high average income but this is offset by a high cost of living and a high concentration of adolescents";
(iv) "Spanish Town has the highest concentration of Urban poverty outside of Kingston."
Of the four (4) forwarded sub-rationale, number (iv) is the only one that speaks to the initial rationale and second nothing was therein that would indicate the prescriptive nature of the exploration of the team.
Despite stated rationale, the research was predominately qualitative. The sampling techniques were snowballing, participatory observation, quota sampling and in-depth interviews. One of the criticisms of social science research is the high degree of low validity because of the statistical techniques that are used in data collection. This research was one such as the researchers used non-probability sampling. These techniques are low in external validly and the researchers cannot generalize results. Despite that position, the study is still able to unearth pertinent information on the sampled population. On the hand, by the researchers’ decision to use content analysis and focus group in-depth interviews the findings are high on internal validity, and provide invaluable information on the studied sample. In respect to the sample, 56.6 percent constituted of males and 43.4 percent were females. This distribution of the sampled population was relative good as it was close to normalcy (i.e. skewness being 0), and so represent the view of the sample and not a particular gender. Even though a cross-section of communities was used within St. Catherine because of the non-probability sampling techniques use the findings cannot be generalized in respect to St. Catherine.
In relations to the findings, of the sampled population (131) of respondents who were from nuclear family type, approximately 55 percent of them were not in school. Within the single parent type family structure (i.e. 100 respondents), the non-school attendee rate was 56 percent whereas for the other family types the rates were 39 percent, 46 percent and 28 percent for extended 2-generation family, 3-generation family and other respectively. Furthermore, the findings revealed that 22.3 percent of the sampled population had both parents present, with 33.8 percent of mother only, with 7.6 percent of fathers only, and 10.3 percent with parent and stepparent, and 9.1 percent with grandparent and 7.4 percent with aunts/uncles.
With respect to the survivability of the sampled population (i.e. 410), the out of school respondents were highly unlikely to be aware of their next meal in comparison to those who stayed in school. In addition, the former group was found to have had more balanced meals and more consistent in an eating schedule. Whereas the out of school respondents had, more social stigma foods (i.e. Chicken Back and Mackerel) and they were often times ‘hustlers’. The findings revealed that even a number of the in-school respondents were food depraved, and still had academic average of over 70 percent.
Some of the respondents indicated that they were supported financially by multiple sources. Some even created their one networking for support while some used their gender, and some were even exploited in sex labour.
With respect to the issue of reproductivity, the findings revealed that of the sampled population, persons began purchasing condom at age 10 years. Furthermore, the rate of sexual initiation of the sampled population was high for males than for females in all age cohorts. Moreover, the findings showed that most of the respondents had their first sexual experience prior to dropping out of school. With half of the female dropouts began at age 14 and 15 years, and 47.8 had their sexual debut at that age. This leads the author to the next issue, the use/non-use of condoms. With respect to this issue, all that was presented was "reasons for non-use of condom at sexual debut" and the response rate extremely low. This followed with the issue on HIV. The researcher did not present any statistic of this phenomenon; instead provide qualitative reasons for many of the misconception about HIV.
In concluding, the research did not address its rationale and while generally provided pertinent information that was enlightening failed to address it mission.