Love relations of young people in the Parisian suburbs: Sexual representations, sexual behaviours and risk for HIV Cover Image

Jeunes de banlieues. Construction identitaire, représentations de la sexualité et comportements sexuels à risque
Love relations of young people in the Parisian suburbs: Sexual representations, sexual behaviours and risk for HIV

Author(s): Marta Maia
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Universitatea din Bucuresti, Facultatea de Sociologie si Asistenta Sociala
Keywords: love relations; sexual representations; risky sexual behaviour; Parisian suburbs; young people; socialisation

Summary/Abstract: The suburbs of Paris are shared between towns and neighbourhoods with different social characteristics, defining personal behaviours and social representations at the most intimate spheres like sexuality. From the observation of student’s populations, we try in this paper to evaluate the importance of social condition and school contexts over sexual behaviour and representations, as well as their knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and practices regarding HIV infection. My purpose was to understand the configurations and layouts of the representations and behaviours by taking into account the scholar, social and cultural contexts of the subjects.The sexual representations and experiences of individuals are too marked by the gender they belong to, which induces social roles and differentiated ideals and determines behaviours, namely those that concern the body and sexuality. The speeches of young people questioned in an ethnological investigation on sexual representations and existences in the Eastern suburb of Paris, denounce the opposition between feminine and masculine values, and show the difference between the representations and behaviours of young males and females.

  • Issue Year: 1/2010
  • Issue No: 01
  • Page Range: 73-89
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: French