Open Access in JAH
Changes in the Sexual Double Standard Associated With Sociodevelopmental Factors Among Young Adolescents in Kinshasa
This study aimed to describe the changes in adolescents' perceptions of a sexual double standard (SDS) over time and to examine the developmental and social factors associated with these changing perceptions.Assessing the Spectrum of Gender Norms Perceptions in Early Adolescence: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Global Early Adolescent Study
There is increasing recognition that gender norms affect adolescent health and well-being. This study explores the consistency of adolescents' gender norm perceptions across different dimensions (roles, traits, relations) and describes how the patterns of these perceptions vary across four culturally different settings.Child Marriages and Unions in Latin America: Understanding the Roles of Agency and Social Norms
Child marriages and unions can infringe upon adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH). Interventions increasingly promote strategies to transform social norms or foster the agency of adolescent girls. Recent empirical studies call for further understanding of how social norms and agency interact in ways that influence these practices, especially in contexts where girls' agency is central.Social Norms Measurement: Catching up With Programs and Moving the Field Forward
To date, there are numerous normative change programs for AYSRH in the field and going to scale [1]. Many of these are doing so, however, with scant evidence of the desired normative change outcomes, resulting largely from the fact that social norms' measurement has lagged behind [2,3]. As programs are developed to shift social norms to improve adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) outcomes, rigorous but practical approaches are needed to identify the social norms that are influencing behaviors, measure changes in social norms, and understand how these changes impact behavioral outcomes.Proposing a Conceptual Framework to Address Social Norms That Influence Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
With 1.8 billion young people aged 10–24 years in the world today, the cohort of adolescents and youth is the largest in history. Concurrently, millions of adolescents are confronting sexual and reproductive health (SRH) challenges, including high rates of unmet need for contraception, unintended pregnancy, and clandestine and unsafe abortion [1]. Social norms—or shared understandings of how oneself and others should behave—can alleviate or exacerbate these challenges. Rapid global changes over the past 25 years have increased the spotlight on the interrelationships between social norms, health, and development [2–4].
