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Health Education Research Advance Access published online on August 14, 2006
Health Education Research, doi:10.1093/her/cyl075
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received June 8, 2006
Accepted June 8, 2006

Original article

Young people, smoking and gender--a qualitative exploration

Amanda Amos 1 * and Yvonne Bostock 2

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

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Amanda Amos, E-mail: amanda.amos{at}ed.ac.uk


  Abstract

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.


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