Early Sexual Initiation Among Urban African American Male Middle School Youth in Baltimore City (Baltimore, Maryland) (Report‪)‬

Introduction For decades research findings have shown, across measures of well-being that youth reared in disadvantaged neighborhoods fare worse (Brooks-Gunn et al., 1997) from problem behavior and negative peer affiliations to emotional and school-based functioning (Jencks & Mayer, 1990). Accordingly, a key element of Bronfenbrenner's ecological view of human development holds that settings close to a child's daily life affect emotional and behavioral learning and development. The wisdom from that work implies child and adolescent behavior is embedded in a social context where family, school, and community provide influences on social adjustment--both direct and indirect. In view of existing theoretical and empirical research concerning the neighborhood ecology and child and adolescent development, sexual risk taking among youth can also be critically examined within a socio-ecological framework.