sexuality lectures: audio files

Crystal Contreras

We are going to examine two articles that pertain to sexuality. The first article, "Race, Religion and Opposition to Same-sex Marriage," by Darren E. Sherkat goes in depth on examining the opposition gap for same-sex marriages between Whites and African Americans. On the other hand, "Children having Children," by Jessica Fields examines the sexuality education relationship amongst Whites and African Americans. We are going to examine the methods and findings of each article furthermore.

We are going to take a look at the methods and findings of the first article mentioned above. In this article, the data being analyzed was taken from the 1988, and 2004-2008 General Social Survey (GSS), which were the years that the GSS asked questions pertaining to same-sex marriage (Sherkat). This method of collecting data is reliable because this is the only survey that asks questions pertaining to same-sex marriages that is nationally representative (Sherkat). Independent factors such as religion and political beliefs were analyzed as the which would affect the dependent carriable, which is opposing same-sex marriages. The results of this research indicate that African Americans oppose same-sex marriages more than Whites because of their religious beliefs (Sherkat). This is so because both White Americans and African Americans belong to different religions that preach different things. African Americans affiliate with Baptist of other Sectarian groups oppose to White Americans who mainly are conservative Protestants. The racial Gap between Whites and African Americans is a product of shifting opinion (Sherkat). This is so because African Americans with a strong conservative Christian background are attending church more often therefore, are prone to oppose same-sex marriages in comparison to Whites. The findings of the article also indicate that Whites do also oppose same-sex marriages but not as much as African Americans who attend church.

Now we are going to examine "Children having Children". The methods that Fields used to collect her data was by participant observation. Fields attended school board meetings from July 1996 to September 1997. She also held qualitative interviews that lasted anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours and they were conducted in a variety of places (Fields). This study conducted showed that African Americans are more concerned about the content being taught to their children through sexual education in school oppose to White Americans (Fields). There is a debate on the two approaches towards teaching children abstinence through sexual education. Abstinence only sexual education promotes abstinence only. In other words, school programs are teaching children to not have sex but are also not teaching them the proper way to practice safe sex. On the other hand, abstinence-plus does teach children how to practice safe sex and the consequences of unprotected sex. This was an approach to help at risk teens and it gives them a chance to thrive (Fields). These children are considered at risk because of the inequalities that they face and are considered to have a higher chance of having sex (Fields). Just that the findings concluded that African Americans practice safe sex when it comes down to the act of it. Oppose to Whites where they are taught to not have sex at all instead of being educated on how to practice safe sex.

In conclusion both articles examine sexuality and the behaviors are compared between Whites and African Americans. The first article told us that Africans who attend church are more opposing to same-sex marriages than Whites. The second article told us that African American children practice safe sex because they are taught about the consequences of unprotected sex opposed to Whites. Both articles looked at the gap between both racial groups.

Sexuality quiz answer

Valerie 404

I chose the articles  " Attitudes and beliefs about homosexuality and same-sex marriage among a sample of South African students" and " Children having children: race innocence and sexuality education, " these articles both drew my attention, because one dealt with how  homosexuality was dealt with in another country while the other dealt with young adult girls or teenagers were having children due to the lack of knowledge on sex. The methods used for homosexuality article were using more than 100 undergraduate college students to answer a survey of eighteen questions to see how they felt about homosexuals and same sex marriage. The survey had statements to agree or disagree with, that also was worded in a strong emotion provoking way. The survey hit subjects that included the government's "thoughts" and how moral it was to be in a same sex marriage. What I predicted for the outcome of the survey's word choice seemed to be the result, many believed that it was wrong to allow for homosexuals to socially acceptable and have the same things such as a family or get married as heterosexuals do. I believe that the way that the questions were formed brought out the more religious and conservative nature of people due to the way that the statements in the survey were made.

The second article involved a more indepth study of how much sexual education their children should receive during school. This study took more than a year to complete with the interviews that were conducted with seventeen different people in variety of positions ranging from administrators to teachers to parents who participated in the debate for how the schools should educate their children on sex. The study took such a long time, because some of the interviews took half an hour while others were three hours. Most of the questions circulated over the 1990 debate of how much and what the content of the sexual education the children will receive in the future. The notes taken from this were mostly verbatim, so that the study would be  more credible. It was found that African American teenage girls were more likely to become pregnant due to the lack of education and how segregated the areas were. The places where the girls grew up were more impoverished areas where teen pregnancies were common. This study was conducted through an interviewing process and the data collected was from a recorder and verbatim notes.

Jose Villasenor

Jose Villasenor, 332 Words

For the sexuality section of the assigned readings I chose the article "Framing Strategies and Public Support for the Legalization of Marriage Between Two People of the Same Sex". This article is a study performed by Oren Pizmony-Levy and Aaron Ponce of the Indiana University. The study hoped to find whether the use of framing strategies by Social Movement Organizations (SMO) had any effect on public opinion over the legalization of same sex marriage. The researchers used data that was gathered in 2009 from a survey conducted by the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University. In order to see whether the use of framing strategies actually had an effect on public opinion, the researchers placed questions about the legalization of Marriage between people of the same sex but controlled the wording used.  The researchers used various words that Social Movement Organizations had previously used in order to frame same sex marriage as either positive or negative.  Once the data was collected, the researchers used Ordinary Least Squares regression modeling to examine it. The researchers found that the use of framing strategies by SMO's does not affect the public opinion on the legalization of same sex marriage but various sociodemographic variables do.

The "Race, Religion, and opposition to Same-Sex Marriage" article attempts to find whether religious factors are at the root of the opposition of same-sex marriage from black and white people. The researchers used data gathered from surveys from 1988 and 2004-2008. The findings demonstrated that in 1988 the support for same-sex marriage was similar between race groups. From 2004-2008 this changed and African Americans opposition increased while White opposition decreased. The researchers concluded that African Americans oppose same-sex marriage at a higher rate than other races and this is due to their religious commitment. African American people attend church at a higher rate than Whites. It is their religious values and beliefs that causes them to oppose same sex marriage because these beliefs are not accepting of same sex marriage.

 

Alline Wright

 482 words

In the first article, "Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage," researchers studied to find an accurate explanation as to why African Americans are in more opposition to same-sex marriage than whites and other ethnicities. The General Social Surveys of 1998 and 2004-2008 were analyzed because they were shown to have the best results for a good length of time. Questions were asked about same-sex marriage support, religious factors, political beliefs, cohorts and sociodemographic variables to find the highest correlation to opposition of same-sex marriage. Although Whites and other ethnicities have had a gradual decline of opposition over the last 20 years, African Americans have had no substantial changes. Ordinal logistic regression models were used to compare demographic factors to religious commitments to try and see what contributes more to the racial gap. The most crucial factors that were found in this study that fill this gap are religious affiliation and religious participation.  Sectarian Protestant Christianity is the most dominant religion and part of African American culture and are very unlikely to liberalize their attitudes towards homosexual marriage. Factors like education level, income, residence location, gender and political values had no significant impact on African Americans' views of LGBT marital rights. With Whites, there is a positive correlation between educational attainment and homosexual marriage acceptance, but it does not liberalize Blacks in the same way. Views toward civil rights of free speech and employment were surveyed and African Americans were found to be just as accepting as Whites to extend these rights to homosexuals, but marital rights are when there is a strong decline in African American support. There is also a hostility present in the African American culture towards homosexuality because of a perceived White phenomenon and thereby goes against the Black identity.

            The second article, "Racial Differences in Age at First Sexual Intercourse: Residential Racial Segregation and the Black-White Disparity Among U.S. Adolescents," analyzed five dimensions of Black and White residential racial segregation to conclude what better defines the age disparity between Black and White first encounter of sexual intercourse between 12 and 20 years; Isolation, concentration, clustering, unevenness and centralization. All five were operationalized by using their various indexes that were all set to the same scale for easy comparison of how segregated Blacks and Whites were. All person-level data from 1997-2005 were used was from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and crucial factors were shown to be regarding age at baseline, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), family structure and whether they lived in a metropolitan area (MA). The U.S. Census 2000 data was used and the study was limited to only using data from MA's that had an African American population of more than 50% and unstable estimates were excluded. Black respondents were more likely than whites to have a low socioeconomic status and live in a single-parent home at baseline and the highly segregated MA's included had over 50 being highly concentrated and highly centralized. This means the disadvantages that African Americans face socially, economically and politically are concentrated to a higher extent and is characterized to urban areas of poverty and crowding. The most and least segregated MA's are more likely to have African Americans whom are sexually active at younger ages in adolescence than Whites. When neighborhoods are moderately integrated, the differences between sexuality in Blacks versus Whites nearly vanishes. This article analyzed how the level of residential segregation majorly impacted the racial disparity between the races' sexualities.

Alma Garcia

In the article Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same-sex Marriage there are two methods that are used to find out whether the racial difference to the same sex marriage is due to religious beliefs. The two methods used are ordinal logistic regression and the stacked structural equal models. There were two General Social Surveys (GSS) taken in 1988 an in 2004-2008. Using those numbers from those two surveys may explain if there is black-white religious beliefs due to same-sex marriage. Several churches mentioned in the article like the Southern Baptist Convention, the Church of God in Christ, and the Assembly of God belief that it is morally wrong to marry someone with the same-sex. Some findings have found that Conservative Protestant have higher rates of religious participation which also oppose to homosexuality. Research has found that that more active goers are the ones that have conservative views. Therefore, African Americans are noted to be very involved in religious organizations. Even though this is the case there have been other studies where it shows that African Americans are more supportive of civil rights unlike whites do. Whites have a 32% of being catholic with accepting homosexuality. Unlike African Americans where they are more likely to be Christian rather than catholic. African Americans have shown that they aren't very accepting towards homosexuals by the music they play, the movies that are shown, or even celebrities making statements about not liking them. Some variables that are also included in the findings are that the questions asked. For example, it included the persons relationship status, if they had kids, and how much education did the receive. The findings showed that whites declined their number from 1988 to 2004. Meanwhile, African Americans mainly stayed the same with 64% opposing same-sex marriage. Therefore, African Americans are opposed to same-sex marriage because of the religious views they carry compared to whites.

            In the article, Race Differences in Sexual Activity Among Adolescent Women: The Role of Neighborhood Characteristics, explains how there being segregation in neighborhoods risk the young adolescent women to be sexually active. Karin L. Brewster used two different methods to gather data. Those two methods are individual and aggregate level data. Black teenagers are most likely to participate in being sexually active than white adolescent females. Black teenagers have a higher rate of having negative outcomes. Studies show that in Chicago, black teens living in a poverty neighborhood limits their resources to contraceptives, which risks teenagers to get pregnant. Black teens and white teens living in a large city with harsh poverty neighborhoods are more likely to drop out of school and get pregnant than others living in a stable economic neighborhood. Young teenagers' expectations can be influenced in low wage jobs that their parents make. It gives them little motivation to achieve higher goals. A factor that can play in young teenagers being sexually active is if they live with both of their parents. The analytic strategy used is seeing how the life of blacks and white's history fall into teenagers being sexually active. Women's attitudes to abortion and what women should be doing falls into having a family. Teenagers appear to be having intercourse when they live in a low poverty neighborhood rather than teens who don't. Not everything falls into where these teenagers live, but that is one of the main aspects. If housing doesn't change then the numbers of teenagers being sexually active.

Alina Moua, Soc 111 MWF @10am, Sexuality, 499 Words

In the article, Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage, methods that influences same-sex marriages varied from education background, religious, social status, political beliefs, and child-rearing responsibilities. Within this article, there are three main groups analyzed; the whites, African Americans, and "other" races. Among whites, they tend to have a higher education background. 32 percent of whites are also affiliated with being a Catholic. Considering another ethnic group, African Americans generally have a lower education background. For this reason, it becomes a strong predictor for GLBT rights. African American are also involved in religious organizations. With further research, due to the past of slavery and segregation, African Americans are less likely to be Catholic or attend liberal protestant churches. In this case, the support for same-sex marriages varied by race.

As a result, there is no difference among racial groups who oppose to same sex marriages. In this study, opposition has decreased throughout the time frame of 1988 to 2008. On page 8 if we examine the given graph, we are able to see the number of whites, blacks, and other races who are against same sex marriages gradually decrease. As shown, in 1988, 68.3 percent of whites opposed to same sex marriages and slowly decline by 14.5 percent by 2004. In a similar scenario, 68.5 percent of blacks opposed to same sex marriage in 1988 and lessens by 1.2 percent by 2004. Religious factor play more of a role for the ethnic groups choices, but that does not completely change the support for same sex marriages. Considering education being an influence, whites being the more dominant in the educational field, it creates positive effects for same sex marriages. In fact, even though African Americans are less educated, the outcome for supporting same sex marriages has no significant difference compared to the whites. Ultimately, the correlation between race and opposing same sex marriages has decreased within different racial groups throughout the years.

In the article, Children Having Children: Race Innocence and Sexuality Education, the author Jessica, targets a specific group in North Carolina, African American girls and women. The southerners population is mainly African Americans youths who are at risk. To further her research, Jessica attended school board meetings for 14 months. She tape recorded her interviews with administrators, educators, and activists with open ended questions that lasted from thirty minutes to three hours. From her research, Jessica found that African Americans are at risk due to low income, poverty, and racialized social problems. North Carolina abortion laws are more restrictive that they deny funds for abortion unless it involves rape or when the woman's life is in danger.

As a result, the social conditions of the youth's lives make a difference. The need for educating abstinence-plus struggles to include all children. Kids who have kids rely on welfare dependency because policy makers in Southern County fail to anticipate healthy lives for African American girls and women. Therefore, African American girls and women raise their kids in a racist society. With this intention, these girls and women are limited to resources.

Sara Greenlee

I two articles I chose to examine for our Sexuality Quiz were, "Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same Sex Marriage" and "Is Love (Color) Blind? The Economy of Race among Gay and Straight Daters." In, "Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same Sex Marriage," authors Darren E. Sherkat, Kylan Mattias de Vries, and Stacia Creek, examined what influences people's, blacks and whites specifically, opinions of same sex marriage. Their methods consisted of examining General Social Surveys. Upon examining the General Social Surveys, Sherkat, Mattias de Vries, and Creek's found that, because of education, whites are more tolerant of same sex marriage than blacks. Other factors of blacks and whites opinions of same sex marriage included income, race, religion, and sex. Whites statistically make more money than blacks, and have higher educations, thus whites have higher tolerance for same marriage. Whereas, blacks are more religious, specifically black women. Religiously, homosexuality is big no, so this makes sense why religious black women are against same marriage. In other words, race and religion, do play a factor in being in favor of same sex marriage, or opposing same sex marriage. As for article number two, "Is Love (Color) Blind? The Economy of Race among Gay and Straight Daters," authors Jennifer H. Lundquist and Ken-Hou Lin, evaluate whether or not interracial couples are more prominent with heterosexual couples, or homosexual couples. To determine this finding, their methods consisted of evaluating online dating, specifically between white gay and straight online daters. The article results showed that people look for the certain genders that attracts them, but regardless of their sexual preference, to these examined online daters, it didn't matter what race they were communicating with, these online daters didn't have a problem with being interracial couples. As to the why of these results, this does make sense; online dating is known for being a guide for easy, quick, hookups. To ensure quick hookups however, that means that people can't be too picky about the girl or guy that they swipe right on, meaning picky of the race of their potential partner. Based on these findings, it is safe to say that love is not color blind, whether you are gay or straight.

 

Gabriel Nabarrete

Sexuality

Methods

"It Goes Hand and Hand with Parties," was data received from interviews of 87 undergraduate men and women enrolled at the University of Illinois at Chicago from August 2010-May 2012. 74 interviews were conducted on male and female students that associated themselves as being heterosexual and to add a twist 13 interviews were conducted on students that identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or queer. 61 percent of the participants are nonwhite having more female than male respondents. 80 percent of the participants are between the age of 18-23 years of age and 50 percent of participants are single and the other 50 percent are in relationships. 70 percent live off campus, 22 percent live on campus and 11 percent live in walking distance to campus. 45 percent of the participants are from working class families.

 

Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage analysis from GSS (General Social Survey) from 1988, and 2004-2008. With this data, the analysis of age cohorts ranging from 1940-1965 and later. Gender binary was also used to compare women and men responses. Races in this data where from Whites, African Americans, and others. African Americans showing a huge divide versus the attitude of whites as time has shown a significant decreased in objectivity and the African Americans has not shown significant changes. The data showed stronger religious ties with the African American Baptist denomination. Political views and education attainment were also used in the survey.

Findings

 

"It Goes Hand and Hand with Parties,"

Findings from this article came with the term "hooking up." This article focused on the level of sexual activity happening within our college campuses, so we as sociologist want to know what are the factors in this behavior. Results have found that this is a life for privileged individuals that have the financial backing to live on campus. Research showed that white students, male or female fit this category more than any other racial group. Is this true? The counterpart would be that of Hispanics, which come from working class households, and more times than not take on part-time jobs to finance their education. College life at home comes with accountability from parents versus the life of living on campus away from home. Based off this information, research makes a lot of sense. Along with sharing dorms with that of the opposite sex allowing more frequent encounters and opportunities for the life style of hooking up. How does religion play a part in this study? Students that live on or off campus having strong religious backing choose not to engage in this life style.  

Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage

Seeking out the contributing factors for the gap in attitudes between that of Whites and African Americans. Political views and education in the survey showed results for the African Americans having no significant differences versus that of the White American showing a result of significant changing of attitude. Are African Americans being taught something different in college? The research did not cover this question, but the results from African Americans that did attend college showed no change in attitude and this may be due to their strong ties with continued religion affiliation. What is creating a big drift in church affiliation amongst the White and other Americans? In the pre-industrial era, we had more traditions within families versus that of post-industrial era. Other contributing factors may be the financial burden many Americans are having today. Families have both parents working and sometimes they work two jobs to make ends meet leaving little leisure time for church affiliation.

Priscilla Gabriel

After reading the articles, "Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage", and "Framing Strategies and Public Support for the Legalization of Marriage Between Two People of the Same-Sex", I found many interesting things that were related in both the articles. In the first article, they looked at the differences in race when it came to what they thought about same-sex marriage. The study showed that African-Americans are less supportive to same-sex marriage compared to those that are white. The article also showed that religion had a lot to do with the reasoning of people who either supported or were against same-sex marriage. Many of the African-Americans who were against same-sex marriage came from a church that was racially segregated. Something that this article also mentioned was that younger generations were more acceptable to same-sex marriage than the older generation. They believed that the younger generation is more open to the idea open about sexuality and also can tolerate same-sex couples. Another thing that the article "Race, Religion.." mentioned was that when they asked people who were married and people who were single if they supported same-sex marriage, married people were the ones who opposed the idea more. One last thing that this article included was that education also had an impact on what people thought about same-sex marriage. People who were educated and going to school were more against same-sex marriage than those who didn't have much of an education. In the second article, "Framing Strategies and Public Support…), there were many similar ideas stated that were mentioned in the first article as well. This article also talked about the different terms used to describe these couples. Some people who supported the same-sex couples viewed the term "homosexual couples" as being a negative term. However, they believed that the terms "gay couples" or "same-sex couples" was more positive. One thing that both these articles had said was the women were more like to agree with same-sex marriage rather than men. This article mentioned that when giving a survey to individuals asking whether they agreed with same-sex marriage, they used different terms. For example, for one survey they would use the term "same-sex couples" and in another survey, they would use "homosexual couples". They did this to see if the different terms being used would affect the outcome of their answers. The results showed that these terms didn't change or impact what their answer would be.