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Evaluating the Role of Nothing to Loose Attitudes on Risky Behavior in Adolescence. In the contemporary overall development and education process of adolescents, the role of nothing to loose attitudes towards risky behavior raises many questions and highlights many important issues of growth and development, thus creating a large boundaries of research for the specialists in the field. In this research we are going to talk about the development and growth of younger people in their adolescence. We are going to discuss the existing and possible problems and solutions to the situation that exists currently in the area and possible future trends. Our main concern will be the significance of these ideas and trends for the understanding of teaching and learning in high schools.
The main help for the research will be the quality article called Evaluating the role of nothing to loose attitudes on risky behavior in adolescence, which addresses the main points of the issue and gives a clear background and the statistical data concerning the issue. We are also going to implement the socio-cultural theory that was developed by Professor Lev Vygotsky that will help the audience understand better the ideas and issues concerning our topic. First of all let us clearly define our main notions of the research that are adolescence and the risk taking behavior. Adolescence is considered to be the transitional time period of life of any particular person between childhood and adulthood. This period may vary greatly therefore we will not state the exact age frames here. This is the time period when individual forms his future expectations and states the clear vision of him or herself at the current standpoint and makes projections that will influence his whole life further on.
Thus we can state that this period of life is very important and what the individual accomplishes and what a decision makes will have the greatest impact on his life ever. The risk taking behavior actually has many definitions depending from which prospective to look at it but in our case it is the behavior of taking and not taking some actions that generally considered appropriate or inappropriate for descent human being. For example such actions like carrying weapons, using drugs etc are generally considered inappropriate but they often happen in lives of younger people nowadays and in the recent past. On the other hand not using contraceptuals is an example of not actions on the side of adolescents that occurs rather often amongst the researched group of people.
Thus we are going to focus our attention on the negative risky behavior of adolescents. There are two main factors that influence the life of the younger people and their attitudes towards risky behavior according to the article. The first main factor is socio cultural one. It is the factor that includes the overall standing points of the private life of an individual such as family situation, the overall surrounding environment and the expectations that individual has concerning his future activities. The research shows that these factors have a great influence on the individual in his actions and the choices he makes. For example adolescents that come out of poor families have less to expect from the future than the ones from rich families.
Because the financial situation is greatly in concern when an individual wants to go to college for example. Also the single parent families kind of discourage the younger people for family lives, which are considered to be one of the primary factors of the success for the future development of healthy nation. It is stated that individuals with overall lower future expectations have greater involvement in risky activities than those with higher expectations because they think that they have nothing to loose. Another important factor that contributes to the adolescents decision making is health factor. Generally adolescents take health for granted, they think that they are young and they cannot have health problems. They dont consider the future situation because it is not their main concern.
Their main concern is how to get better of today and how to get more of life at the particular current moment. Adolescents start to pretend that they are already grown up enough and start involving in adult kind activities rather often. For example having sex for 13 -year-old girl is not a positive thing for her future health development, but this is a common situation nowadays. This may cause early pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, but adolescents dont think about it and they dont even do such an easy thing for their protection as using condoms for example. Another important issue that concerns our research is the problem of violence amongst the adolescents. This is because the research shows that violent behavior has a close connection to risk taking.
The situation with violence has changed dramatically since 1985. The statistics show that the quantity of arrested young people for murder has grown dramatically since than as well as the homicide rate among 14 - 17 years old. One of the main reasons to that is the fact that a handgun for example became more available for younger people now. Economic factor is another one contributing to the issue as I already stated. During resent years women became more involved in labor market and have less time to give to their family and children.
Consequently the quantity of single parent families grew rapidly, and that has poor impact on the development of young individual. Another main important factor contributing to the development of the researched people group according to the article is school factor. This factor is probably as equal if not most important among our main ones. This is because adolescents spend much of their time in school and they have most of their peer contacts there. They have a socio cultural interaction in which they gain new information and generate new ideas.
Adolescents structure their behavior greatly in school because they see the actions and the events that occur there and form their general opinion on what is right and what is wrong. They see what is common in school and accept it to be common in their everyday life consequently. The social and environmental factors discussed earlier are applicable in the school context as well. This is one great and important issue because school is considered to be the most important factor of the education for the individual and this is very important in our case because this is primary goal of our research. School has to be the cornerstone for the development of adolescents attitudes towards their lifestyle.
I can only add here that in order for school to become more respected by the adolescents it definitely needs improvement and especially the improvement of the attitude of certain category of adolescents toward it. This is a whole new theme of our research that we are not going to discuss today. Now I will draw the socio-cultural approach, which was developed by a well-known professor in the field Lev Vygotsky, towards the issue. This theory focuses on how culture-values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group-is transmitted to the next generation" (Berk, 2003, p. 26). According to Vygotsky, social interaction-in particular, cooperative dialogues between children and more knowledgeable members of society-is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community's culture (Berk, 2003, p. 26). In his papers Vygotsky described a strong link between social experience, speech and learning, integrating it with future success of a child.
Socio-cultural experience is considered to be the central component of learning, according to Vygotsky. It includes social interactions and language. This is not a general stage theory of cognitive development. Through Vygotsky and other consistent theories of cognitive development, individuals construct increasingly more complex and accurate understanding of information and mental operations. This development takes the individual from a starting point and pushes them toward higher and higher levels of cognitive advancement based on their continued interactions with more advanced individuals. The individuals work toward higher levels of understanding through scaffolding processes.
Scaffolding is the process of providing the learner with tools they can use to work on higher-level tasks. Without the tools, they would not be able to advance to the chosen height; therefore the scaffold supports their learning. Language is one form of scaffolding, according to Vygotsky. The child is provided with verbal or written directions that the he can rely upon through a series of directives.
The directives initially are in public speech or communication, because another person is providing the directive. Gradually, the speech is internalized, so that the learner is able to give directions to herself out loud, and eventually without speaking aloud. Mediators are considered to be another form of scaffolding, according to the professor. These are tools that provide basic information that the child can refer back to when solving a problem. These may be diagram keys, or reference charts that help them with basic operations.
Eventually, the information provided on the mediator is memorized (internalized) and the child no longer needs that external scaffold to perform. Finally, there are shared activities. These activities are tasks, which the learner performs with another person. Through that experience, the child learns how to do a new task and can gain practice in the presence of a more sophisticated learner (or teacher). The shared activity again highlights the importance of social interactions in Vygotsky's theory. Zone of Proximal Development is another important notion developed by the professor, and it consists of the range of tasks that the learner can accomplish with the aid of one form of scaffolding, but cannot accomplish alone.
The ZPD extends only to tasks that are comprehendible given the learners support networks (language, mediator, shared activity, tutor). Therefore we may state that a child constantly needs support and attention. The right person that appears to be near may have a great influence upon the development of a child and consequently at his future attitudes. According to the professor the child cannot himself figure out about what is right and what is wrong, therefore the child always seeks the support from the tutor and usually takes for granted the things the tutor tells him.
He maintained that social communication gives rise to all uniquely human, higher cognitive processes. By communicating with mature members of society, children learn to master activities and think in ways that have meaning in their culture. Vygotsky believed that all higher cognitive processes develop out of social interaction. Through joint activities with more mature members of society, children come to master activities and think in ways that have meaning in their culture (Berk, 2003, p. 258). The child as any other person is concerned over himself most of the time and all the rest is less of his attention, therefore more attention should be given from the tutors in respect of the understanding of this notion and helping the child to find a correct way of behavior for future success.
Vygotsky stated in his research that the child or adolescent usually considers himself to be the most important value ever and therefore it is a core issue for the scientists in the field to understand the ways of possible improvement for the situation that arose among the adolescents behavior towards risk taking. Moreover the tutors should pretend that adolescent is correct in his thinking, but the tutor should lead the child in correct direction towards successful future. To summarize the research on the issue one must state that we definitely have a problem of the development of the younger people in our society. There are many factors internal and external that influence the behavior of adolescents and many issues that have a great concern of them. But the core conclusion that we can make from the themes that we have discovered is the fact that the situation needs great involvement from the side of the more mature people and it definitely needs improvement at the moment.
This may be done in various kinds of ways but it should be not forgotten or left off for tomorrow. Bibliography: Evaluating the role of nothing to lose attitudes on risky behavior in adolescence. (Statistical Data Included) Kathleen Mullan Harris; Greg J. Duncan; Johanne Boisjoly. Article. Larger E. Berk, Child Development, New York: Viking Press, 2000, 2 nd Edition.
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