Skip Navigation


Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on August 14, 2006
Health Education Research 2007 22(6):770-781; doi:10.1093/her/cyl075
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
22/6/770    most recent
cyl075v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (2)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Amos, A.
Right arrow Articles by Bostock, Y.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Amos, A.
Right arrow Articles by Bostock, Y.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Young people, smoking and gender—a qualitative exploration

Amanda Amos1,* and Yvonne Bostock2

1 Public Health Sciences, Division of Community Health Sciences, Medical School, Edinburgh University, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, UK
2 Bostock Consulting, Edinburgh, UK

* Correspondence to: A. Amos. E-mail: amanda.amos{at}ed.ac.uk

Smoking among young people has become increasingly gendered. In several countries, smoking among adolescent girls is now higher than among adolescent boys. However, we have only a limited understanding of the reasons behind these gender patterns. This paper reports the findings from a qualitative study which used single-sex focus groups to explore the gendered nature of the meaning and function of smoking among Scottish 15- to 16-year old smokers. The study found that young people were ambivalent about their smoking but that this was somewhat different for boys and girls. These differences related to their social worlds, pattern of social relationships, interests, activities and concerns, the meanings they attached to smoking and the role smoking played in dealing with the everyday experience of being a boy or girl in their mid-teens. For example, boys were concerned about the impact of smoking on their fitness and sport, whereas girls were more concerned about the negative aesthetic effects such as their clothes and bodies smelling of smoke. Of particular importance was how smoking related in different ways to the gendered ‘identity work’ that adolescents had to undertake to achieve a socially and culturally acceptable image. The implications for programmes aimed at reducing smoking among young people, particularly the need for more gender-sensitive approaches, are discussed.

Received on June 8, 2006; accepted on June 8, 2006


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Health Educ ResHome page
M. Ausems, I. Mesters, G. van Breukelen, and H. De Vries
Smoking among Dutch elementary schoolchildren: gender-specific predictors
Health Educ. Res., October 1, 2009; 24(5): 818 - 828.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.