The Impact of Relationship Education on Adolescents of Diverse Backgrounds

Adolescent-focused marriage education is a relatively uncharted research area. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined the effectiveness of an adapted version of the curriculum entitled, Love U2: Increasing Your Relationship Smarts with an economically, geographically, and racially di...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Family relations 2007-07, Vol.56 (3), p.291-303
Main Authors: Adler-Baeder, Francesca, Kerpelman, Jennifer L., Schramm, David G., Higginbotham, Brian, Paulk, Amber
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
adolescent romantic relationships
Adolescents
African Americans
Aggression
Attitudes
Beliefs
Children & youth
Conflict management
Control groups
Counseling
Couples
Curricula
Curriculum
dating violence
Education
Ethnic Diversity
Ethnicity
Experiential learning
Family Income
Family life
Family Life Education
family life education and related areas
Family relations
Family Structure
Family studies
Family Violence
Geographic Location
Government School Relationship
High School Students
Households
Human aggression
Individual Development
Instructional Effectiveness
Interpersonal relations
Interpersonal Relationship
Low Income Groups
Marriage
Outcomes of Education
Participant Characteristics
Posttests
Pretests
Program Evaluation
Psychological Patterns
Quasiexperimental Design
Relationship Education and Marriage
Research Design
Risk
Romanticism
Schools
Secondary school curricula
Social dating
Social sciences
Student Diversity
Students
Studies
Suicides & suicide attempts
Urban areas
Violence
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Description
Summary:Adolescent-focused marriage education is a relatively uncharted research area. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined the effectiveness of an adapted version of the curriculum entitled, Love U2: Increasing Your Relationship Smarts with an economically, geographically, and racially diverse sample of 340 high school students. Findings suggest that participants showed increases in 5 dimensions of their relationship knowledge, including their ability to identify unhealthy relationship patterns. Participants also had more realistic beliefs about relationships/marriages and reported lower levels of verbal aggression use at postprogram compared to controls. Moreover, these findings existed across race, household income, and family structure type, with all participating students benefiting in similar ways. Implications for future programming and research are discussed.
ISSN:0197-6664
1741-3729
0197-6664
DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2007.00460.x