Access to Sexuality Information by Zimbabwean School Teenagers

Abstract

This study reports on the findings on access to sexuality information by Zimbabwean school teenagers from a region with cultural rites of passage to adulthood. Participants were a convenience sample of 100 Shangaan speaking high school students (females = 50%). They responded to questions on the nature of sexuality information they perceived to receive from parents, teachers, traditional experts in cultural initiation rites and the mass media, including the quality thereof. The data were analyzed using theme identification methods and descriptive statistics. All culturally initiated teenagers reported that the initiation was useful as they received timely information on body changes, boy-girl relations and mood swings unlike most of their uninitiated counterparts. Both initiated and uninitiated teenagers reported parents as providing the least explicit and least useful sexuality information compared to teachers, mass media and traditional leaders.