Ramirez-Valles et al. / TIMING OF FIRST INTERCOURSE GENDER DIFFERENCES OF NEIGHBORHOOD AND SOCIAL CONTROL PROCESSES A Study of the Timing of First Intercourse Among Low-Achieving, Urban, African American Youth

This study examines the gender-specific contextual and individual socioeconomic predictors of the timing of first intercourse among low-achieving African American youth. Following financial deprivation and collective socialization theories, the au-thors test separate models for males and females and include neighborhood poverty and race composition, family social class position, and social control mechanisms such as family structure, parental involvement, and prosocial activities as predictors. The sample comprises 558 African American high school students followed over a 3-year period. For young women, the significant predictors are age, mother’s educa-tion, timewithmother, and involvement in church activities. For youngmen, the signif-icant factors are school achievement, an interaction between living in an two-parent family and time with father, participation in family decision making, and neighbor-hood poverty level. Thus, males and females are differently affected by social control processes and neighborhood poverty plays a significant role in young African Ameri-can men’s sexual behaviors. During the 1990s, adolescent sexual activity has decreased signifi-cantly after two decades of steady increases (Centers for Disease Con