Initiated by the ILPES Research Department in January 1994, the present study was undertaken over a two year period, with the final report being completed in December 1995. Figure 1 summarizes the structure of the research team.
Overall control of project execution was initially placed in the hands of 2 research directors. However, given the complexities involved, it was deemed necessary to appoint a general coordinator who would take charge of all aspects of study implementation, including inventory management and preliminary review of the raw data (ie. from interviews and focus groups). Moreover, this individual was also responsible for the supervision of two administrative coordinators, one for each community, whose principal duties encompassed public relations, organization of focus groups, and identification of key informants and people who would carry out the in-depth interviews. Meanwhile, ethnographers participated in the day-to-day activities of young people, as well as conducting focus groups and interviews with community leaders.
As has been made clear above, our principal aim in carrying out this study was to explore sexual culture as learned and internalized by Costa Rican youth, and to assess its impact upon sexual practice and the risk of HIV infection. In turn, this provided the basis for the development of seven concrete research objectives:
Target population and study sample
Having decided that our target population would consist of young people of both sexes who were long-time residents of either Villa del Mar or Villa del Sol, we set about the task of elaborating a sample of young people (aged 12 to 19) drawn from both communities. This age bracket was chosen because it encompasses the period when profound changes take place in the lives of young people, including (inter alia) first sexual experience and first menstruation.
A series of quotas were used to generate the sample, with community membership, sex, age, first sexual experience and onset of menstruation (for girls) being the principal criteria employed in this regard. In total, 56 individuals were selected, and were characterized by the following set of attributes:
Figure 2 -Study sample broken down by age and sex
Figure 3 -Study sample broken down by sex and age of first sexual experience
As the latter table suggests, the majority of young people -of both sexes -had had no sexual experience prior to their inclusion in the sample. However, the nature of the study was such that this did not prevent us from gathering sufficient information about those who were sexually experienced.
Figure 4 outlines the age at which girls in the sample had their first menstruation:
Figure 4 -Study sample broken down by age of first menstruation
Given the importance of the in-depth, qualitative interviews to the ultimate success of the project, considerable investment was made to ensure that they were carried out in an appropriate fashion. Consultants were hired to provide training to the interviewers, and to assist in the preparation of an interview guide.
In addition to the interviews, participant observation was also incorporated into the methodology of this study. It provided a means of obtaining information about youth and their sexual practices in a non-threatening, unobtrusive manner. In order to carry out these observations, project ethnographers frequented the bars, discotheques, beaches and others places where young people gather. Moreover, they also participated in religious, cultural and sporting events, and recorded key details concerning the nature and location of youngsters’ activities.
A series of focus groups were also carried out by field staff. These provided a means of obtaining additional information about young people’s sexual culture, while at the same time serving to corroborate the findings of project ethnographers and interviewers. In this way, they were helpful in casting further light upon each community’s social milieu, as well as the nature of young people’s relationships, life styles and emotions.
Preparation of an interview guide
Having drawn up a guide to assist those who were charged with carrying out the in-depth interviews, the latter was subjected to three series of tests: first during initial training of staff; second during the project pilot; and third during the final training workshop (see time table of activities for dates in question).
In essence, the interview guide provided a list of questions on a wide range of topics (eg. religion, gender relations, family, sex, education, bodily perceptions and so forth), whose underlying purpose was to elicit information about sexual discourses, their inter-relationships and contradictions, along with young people’s resistance to them. The specific issues addressed by the guide are summarized below:
| 1. | Questions related to formal sexual discourses and their impact on young people (in the home, on the street, at school): | |
| 1.1 | What is the substance of sexual information and discourses to which young people are exposed in the street, in the home, and at school? What principles, norms, ideals, behaviour and practices do they promote? How do they vary among the two communities? | |
| 1.2 | What differences distinguish one discourse from another, and what are their contradictions? To the extent that discourses promote different practices depending upon individuals’ gender or religion, how might one characterize their variable impact upon those who benefit and those suffer from them most? | |
| 1.3 | How might one characterize young people’s perception of discourses, along with their norms, rules, principles and objectives? How do young people respond to the latter? How are messages internalized and how do they influence young people's sexual life? | |
| 1.4 | What is the role of such external factors as unemployment, drug addiction, sexual abuse, divorce, abandonment and how do they influence young people's sexuality and their view of the world? | |
| 2. | Questions related to Christian fundamentalist discourse and its impact on sexuality: | |
| 2.1 | How does this discourse influence young people's sexuality? | |
| 2.2 | What is the relationship between this discourse and non-fundamentalist sexual discourses, and what implications (if any) do their interactions hold for young people? | |
| 3. | Questions related to sexism in Costa Rica and its influence on sex education in schools: | |
| 3.1 | How, when and for what reason are sexist discourses established in Costa Rican society? | |
| 3.2 | What are the consequences of sexism? These may include, but are not limited to, sex-based discrimination, sexual aggression, sexual precocity, prostitution and unsafe sexual practices. | |
| 3.3 | What factors are significant in reinforcing or undermining sexism and double standards among different groups of young people? | |
| 3.4 | How does sexism influence young people's view and practice of sex, and to what extent are variables such as age, gender, class, religion, place of residence and education significant in this regard? | |
| 3.5 | What is the relationship between sexual stereotyping, knowledge of AIDS, and the practice of safe sex among men and women? | |
| 3.6 | What could be done to counter sexism and sexual violence among young people, and promote a healthier, more equitable relationship between men and women? | |
| 4. | Questions related to the inter-relationship between discourses and activities which place individuals at high risk of contracting HIV: | |
| 4.1 | In what ways does practice differ from theory and how do young people sort out the contradictions and inconsistencies which may be inherent within dominant discourses? | |
| 4.2 | To what extent does sexual expression and understanding vary along lines of age, gender, place of residence, religion, and social class? | |
| 4.3 | What factors are at work in inducing young people to engage in, or refrain from engaging in, sexual intercourse? Relevant factors may include, but are not limited to, parties, religion, substance use, peer pressure, sexual aggression, economic problems, parental influence, sex education and myths. | |
| 4.4 | In what contexts is the pressure to engage in sexual intercourse most strongly felt? | |
Needless to say, the quantity of data gathered during the course of the interview process was enormous. However, rather than attempting to condense the material through interviewer syntheses or the preparation of case histories, we deemed it crucial that the young people be allowed to speak for themselves. Otherwise, we were afraid that the conservative nature of Costa Rican society, particularly in relation to adolescent sexuality, would cause people to disbelieve or reject our findings.
Selection and training of interviewers
Given the key role played by the interviewer in the qualitative research process, considerable time and resources were devoted to the task of recruiting appropriate field staff. In the paragraphs below we summarize some of the issues taken into account as we embarked upon this exercise.
First, it was essential that interviewers be able to display an appropriate degree of sensitivity to research participants. While acknowledging that a post-secondary education is no guarantee of the latter, we felt that, by focusing our recruitment campaign on university campuses, our field staff would at the very least be likely to possess the background necessary to conduct the interviews in a professional manner. Moreover, any gaps in interviewers’ knowledge base would be corrected through specialized training.
Second, it was considered likely that the interview process would arouse strong emotions on the part of some participants, particularly if they had suffered sexual, physical or psychological abuse in the past. Thus, as part of their training, field staff (many of whom were upper-year psychology students) were taught crisis intervention techniques and given a list of professionals to whom participants could be referred.
Finally, it was emphasized to us during scoping exercises that young people would be extremely leery of discussing personal matters with fellow community members, and that they would prefer to be interviewed by people they did not know.
As one might imagine, these considerations forced us to look beyond the communities themselves for suitable interview staff. Had we not planned for this contingency from the outset, the costs involved may have been prohibitive, but as it was the administrative coordinator was able to facilitate the process through judicious management of interview logistics.
Figure 5 - Time-table of activities
During the first phase of project implementation (February 1994), approximately ten individuals were trained to conduct interviews and engage in other research-related activities. This group was subsequently given the task of carrying out a pilot study. It was on the basis of this pilot that we reviewed the overall feasibility of the study itself (May and June 1994), and subsequently made the decision to train a larger group of interviewers; so as to save time and extend the project’s scope (July 1994).
In order to expedite the recruitment of additional staff, a circular was prepared and distributed to all Costa Rican universities. Résumés were received from roughly 30 undergraduate and graduate students, from which we selected 20 individuals who were between the ages of 22 and 26. Hiring criteria included a strong academic record, proven ability to handle responsibility, interest in the study and willingness to travel. Moreover, to ensure that study participants did not feel alienated by their interviewer, class background and gender were also taken into account by the hiring committee.
Upon selection, field staff were asked to participate in a one-week training course. A range of issues were addressed during the course of the latter, including presentation of the basic tenets of post-modernism (social constructionism, discourse theory and relevant methodologies), religious fundamentalism (socio-historical context, analysis of fundamentalist sexual discourses and forms of resistance by young people), and the gender-sex dichotomy (feminist theory and conceptualizations of masculinity).
The internalization of sexual discourses by project participants was also addressed in the training workshop, as were the forms of resistance these may engender and their likely impact upon the interview process. Moreover, field staff also engaged in practice interviews, feedback from which resulted in further modifications to the interview guide.
Conduct of in-depth interviews
The first step in project implementation involved publicizing the study in the two communities, followed by a series of reconnaissance visits to carry out ethnographic observation and interviews with community leaders. With the help of the administrative coordinator in each town, key sites and institutions were visited in order to compile relevant data on young people’s leisure activities, along with their behaviour, emotions and ways of thinking. Initial probing in the area of sexual discourses also took place at this time.
The first in-depth interviews were conducted in Villa del Mar in July 1994. The administrative coordinator in this community, well-respected for her work in the health sector, made initial contact with young people, as well as explaining the nature of the project to their parents. All interviews were tape-recorded and, as a way of building trust between field staff and participants, men were only interviewed by men, and women by women. Sessions lasted anywhere from six to eight hours, generally broken up into three or four two-hour segments.
Approximately one month later (in August 1994), interviews began in Villa del Sol, with a local secondary school letting us use their facilities for this purpose. As was the case in Villa del Mar, interview logistics were handled by the town’s administrative coordinator, a psychologist who was also a resident of the community.
Between July 1994 and March 1995,, 56 interviews were successfully carried out in the two towns (28 in each). Significantly, only three individuals (two men and a woman) -all from Villa del Sol -decided to bow out in the midst of the interview process. Clearly, the high level of dedication and enthusiasm of field staff played a key role in ensuring the interviews’ success.
On the basis of initial findings from the interviews, it was decided to hold a series of group sessions in order to cast additional light upon a number of ambiguous or otherwise under-explored issues. For the most part, these topics had previously been identified in the interview guide, and were related to the sexual lives of young people, conceptualizations of femininity and masculinity, entertainment and leisure activities, community problems, HIV/AIDS, and relationships with parents, peers and significant others. Moreover, two focus groups of roughly three hours in length were also held with young members of fundamentalist churches in both communities.
All of these sessions were taped. In Villa del Mar, focus groups were held over the course of four weekends in November and December 1994, with men and women meeting separately in groups of ten. Once again, the administrative coordinator was responsible for making all necessary arrangements, including rental of the town’s community hall. Particularly noteworthy in this regard is the fact that one of the groups was made up primarily of members of a Roman Catholic youth organization, none of whom had participated in an in-depth interview.
Focus groups were also carried out in Villa del Sol, albeit with greater difficulty due to the reluctance of some youths to participate in this type of activity. However, thanks to the efforts of the local project coordinator, groups sessions were eventually held, and were organized along lines similar to those of Villa del Mar. Meeting places included the community’s Red Cross office and a private home.
However, it should be noted that, due to the reluctance of Villa del Sol youth to take part in the focus group sessions, we were forced to approach a number of local religious organizations to help us carry them out. This in turn meant that most group members were drawn from the ranks of these organizations, which prompted us to drop the subject of religion, given that the views expressed would likely not be representative of the entire community in any case. Instead, we relied on findings derived from the in-depth, personal interviews.
Focus groups were facilitated by men and women who had previously worked on the project as interviewers or ethnographers. These individuals made use of a range of techniques to elicit participants’ views and responses, with particular emphasis placed upon participatory approaches. Examples of the latter include role-play (to explore men and women’s understanding of themselves and each other) and visualization exercises (to identify and make sense of sex-based stereotypes). Moreover, facilitators also asked participants to break into smaller groups to discuss issues such as homosexuality, virginity and gender relations.
We were also interested in determining whether or not young people’s behaviour differed when confronted with mixed-or single-sex groups. When the sessions were mixed, we generally found that women were less willing to voice their opinions, particularly on the subject of sex. Meanwhile, young men were most anxious when they were among other males, leading us to conclude that they needed women present to protect them from intimate questioning of a sort that would force them to reveal their innermost feelings in front of male peers.
Interviews with community leaders
It has already been noted that Villa del Mar community leaders were far more receptive to our requests for interviews than was the case in Villa del Sol (see Figure 6), where a local priest spoke out against our work in the area. Among those whom we interviewed were school teachers, church officials (including priests and ministers), bar owners, health care workers, drug dealers, politicians, civil servants, NGO staffers and business people.
Number of community leaders interviewed in Villa del Sol and Villa del Mar according to sex
Figure 6 -Interviews with community leaders broken down by community
Transcription and data analysis
Transcription proved to be an arduous task due to the length and number of interviews carried out. Taking roughly five months to complete, from December 1994 to April 1995, the material was entered into a custom-designed data management programme called SAPAC. In essence, the programme allows users to codify and sort information while it is on the screen in front of them.
A team of three researchers engaged in an initial round data analysis, in order to identify the most salient issues and themes. This was followed by a second round of more intensive exploration, involving the 'shuffling' and 'reshuffling' of material as a means of teasing out key patterns and contradictions. Needless to say, the sheer volume of interview and focus group material prevented us from analyzing it in highly detailed terms. Nevertheless, our conceptual framework, discussed at length in chapter 3 below, provided a powerful lens through which to make sense of the data.
Given the nature of this study, it is not particularly surprising that members of the interview team were themselves faced with certain difficulties in coming to terms with the subject matter. Not only were few familiar with the concept of social constructionism, but most had never engaged in a truly frank discussion around such contentious issues as male violence and sexism.
Thus, during the course of the training workshops it was decided that, if young people were to speak openly about their sexuality, field staff should be expected to do the same. This in turn provided the basis for a series of candid and often painful admissions by team members as the latter delved into their memories and innermost emotions. Significantly, not only did this self-reflexivity contribute to interviewers' ability to handle difficult or controversial topics in the interviews themselves, but several indicated to us that the training workshops had also helped them sort out problems they were dealing with in their own lives.
It should be noted as well that a number of changes were made to the project methodology once the implementation process had begun. In the first instance, research directors were forced to change the order of interventions, so that the in-depth interviews were held before the groups sessions rather than the reverse (as had originally been foreseen). This decision was taken for several reasons, including most notably problems in recruiting a sufficient number of workshop facilitators, along with young people’s initial reluctance to discuss personal issues in a group setting.
Moreover, difficulties were also encountered during the ethnographic phase of the study. In short, while it had been our hope prior to the initiation of field work that the ethnographers would take part in a wide range of community activities, in fact much of their time was spent conducting personal interviews. As one might imagine, this left us with a significant gap in our knowledge of key issues in young people’s lives, which we sought to address through a series of meetings with focus group facilitators and the two community coordinators.
Meanwhile, on a purely logistical level, field workers were faced with a series of challenges in scheduling group sessions in the two communities. That is to say, having originally planned to recruit focus group participants from among those who had taken part in a personal interview, it was subsequently discovered that this would not always be feasible, due to young people’s conflicting work, school and social commitments. Thus, as a way of resolving this problem, sessions were held with members of already-established groups, such as church-based youth organizations.
As for the personal interviews themselves, there can be little doubt that the delicate nature of the subject matter addressed did not facilitate the recruitment of participants. Young people’s reluctance to become involved was especially marked in Villa del Sol, where three individuals refused outright to participate, while others became wary after learning of some of the questions to be asked from those who had gone before them.
Finally, it must be acknowledged that we never successfully resolved the problem posed by Villa del Sol community leaders’ refusal to support the project. It is for this reason that field staff were only able to secure interviews with three such individuals; others excused themselves by saying they had no time, or, in less diplomatic fashion, that they simply did not want to cooperate. It is thought that the most influential community’s Catholic priest, who was initially supportive of our work but later decided to oppose it, may have been influential in these decisions. Still, this is not to suggest that our field workers faced no obstacles at all in Villa del Mar. In particular, interviewers, facilitators and ethnographers often had to contend with personal safety concerns, given the high risk of being robbed or assaulted in some of the neighborhoods in which they worked. That they managed to avoid being victimized in this way was in large measure due to the guidance and advice provided by our community coordinator, who was familiar with local conditions and well-respected by community-members because of her work as a nurse.