Impact of an AIDS Education Course on University Student Attitudes

Students' perceptions of parent-adolescent closeness and communication about sexuality: relations with sexual knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors

The main goal of this study was to explore how parent-adolescent closeness and communication about sexuality were associated with three aspects of adolescent sexuality (sexual knowledge, attitudes and behaviors). Participants were 157 boys and girls in grades 9 to 12 from two suburban high schools in the Midwest. Canonical correlation analyses revealed two significant combinations of variables. First, younger age and less maternal and paternal communication were related to less sexual behavior and less sexual knowledge. Second, being younger and female and receiving less maternal communication was related to less sexual knowledge and more conservative attitudes. Contrary to expectation, higher levels of parental closeness in conjunction with parental communication did not have a significant influence on these adolescents' sexuality. Given the importance of both age and parental communication in predicting adolescent's sexuality in this study, implications concerning the timing of communication become evident.

Ethnicity and sex differences in university students' knowledge of AIDS, fear of AIDS, and homophobia

One hundred ninety students at a southwestern urban university participated in a study that investigated ethnicity and sex differences in AIDS-related variables: AIDS knowledge, fear of AIDS, and homophobia. Analysis of data (ANOVA) revealed that African-Americans had significantly lower scores on measures of AIDS knowledge and were significantly more homophobic, compared to Caucasian students. African-Americans also had lower average AIDS knowledge scores than Hispanics. Women had a lower fear of AIDS than men. Relationships between homophobia and fear of AIDS on the one hand, and AIDS knowledge on the other hand, were low and counter-intuitive for African-Americans and Hispanics. This suggests the need for differential efforts in AIDS education programs targeting these groups.