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ERIC Number: EJ807989
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
Reference Count: 35
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0017-8969
What Teenage Girls Write to Agony Aunts: Their Relationships, Perception, Pressures and Needs
Williams, Maureen
Health Education Journal, v63 n4 p324-333 2004
Teenage magazines are viewed by their readers as "trusted friends" that provide reliable information on sex and relationship issues. Agony aunts and uncles receive approximately half a million letters each year from teenagers in the UK. Objective: To understand the perceptions, pressures and needs of young girls on issues pertaining to their relationships. Design: A qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological approach that subscribes to thematic analysis of transcribed letters over a period of four months. Method: Analysis of 254 anonymous letters sent by young people to the Agony Aunt of "Mizz", a teenage magazine aimed at girls aged between 11 and 14 years. An inductive approach was used, codes were developed and modified as new themes and sub-themes emerged from the data and, thus, a thematic framework produced. Results: A framework of the four main problem-themes was identified: boyfriends, friends, family and "others". Each theme was scrutinised to identify highest sub-themes, aspects unique to each theme and sub- themes shared between themes. The proportion of concerns over "relationships" was high. Conclusion: Relationship issues are of most concern to the young female writers. This has important implications for sex and relationship education of young teenage girls, where addressing relationship issues to include negotiation, reciprocity and conflict resolution may be most important to them at this stage of their development.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: N/A