Sexually Related Content on Television and Adolescents of Color: Media Theory, Physiological Development, and Psychological Impact*

Journal of Negro Education, The, Fall 2003 by Gruber, Enid, Thau, Helaine

Social critics and commentators have also weighed in on television's role in American culture and its influence on underrepresented population subgroups. Stroman (1991) argued that television viewing plays an important role in the socialization of African American adolescents by providing knowledge and exposure to a worldview that is often not available to them in their immediate social environment. As an information outlet, this controversial viewpoint implies that television may present role models for aspiration and emulation that negatively affect adolescent attitudes, behaviors, and self-image by depicting unattainable goals or lifestyles. It has been suggested that historically, the television medium perpetuated racist views of American society that excluded people of color, denying minority children realistic portrayals and trivializing their participation in society (Downing, 2002; Gray, 1996). Even when African Americans and Hispanic Americans appear in the media, they often perpetuate racial stereotypes or present lifestyles and experiences that clash with the reality of lives led by most people of color. As such, television may act to differentially influence minority adolescents through variation in exposure, through differential interpretation, and through discriminatory portrayals that may disproportionally harm adolescents of color.

COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENTAL TRENDS ACROSS ETHNIC GROUPS

Physiological development and its onset and pacing may also have a role in adolescents' attention to media messages. Recent national studies support anecdotal evidence that the onset of puberty is declining in both girls and boys in the United States. Improved nutrition, disease control, and sanitation are all contributors to this secular trend to the extent that we understand it (Eveleth & Tanner, 1990; Steinberg, 2002). In a sample of over 17,000 girls seen in pediatric practices (Herman-Giddens et al., 1997), girls were reported to be entering puberty at significantly younger ages than the standards published 20 years earlier in major medical journals. Further, African American girls were more advanced on all pubertal criteria than White girls were at comparable ages. Their results indicated that African American females entered puberty approximately 1 to 1.5 years earlier than their White peers and began to menstruate approximately 8 months earlier. Specifically, by age 8, almost half of all Black girls had begun pubertal development as compared to only 15% of Whites of the same age.

Similar developmental and ethnic differences have been examined in males. Computed estimates of the development of secondary sexual characteristics in boys from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (NHANES; Herman-Giddens, Wang, & Koch, 2001) also suggest that age of initiation of sexual development has declined precipitously in American boys. This population-based sample representing over 16 million adolescent males between 8 and 19 years of age indicates that boys are significantly taller and heavier than prior NHANES samples and that the mean age of onset of male genital development is 1.5 years earlier than the standard set 30 years ago (Marshall & Tanner, 1970). In ethnic comparisons, as with females, African American males had an earlier average age of pubic hair development and genital growth than White and Mexican American peers. Here, by age 10, more than a third of African American boys had experienced pubic hair development as compared to 10% of White peers and 7% of Mexican American peers.