Abstract
In this study, online questionnaires were used to examine the sexting (sexual correspondence) habits of 547 students (113 boys and 434 girls) attending grades seven through 12, in an attempt to identify the correlation between parenting styles and the sense of social control experienced by the participants regarding their sexting habits. Findings of the study indicate that sexting was more prevalent among boys, of high-school age, attending mainstream secular schools in Israel (compared to girls, in middle school, attending national-religious schools, respectively). However, eliminating the religious students from the sample resulted in no gender difference in terms of sexting habits. Furthermore, it was also found that the weaker the degree of social control perceived by the adolescent, the greater was the likelihood that the adolescent was engaging in sexting activities. These findings shed light on sexting, a phenomenon which–despite its prevalence among youths in Israel and throughout the world–is insufficiently addressed by the significant adults in their lives. The implications of these findings for educators and school counselors are considered and discussed.
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Dolev-Cohen, M., Ricon, T. (2021). Adolescent Sexting and Its Associations with Parenting Styles and Sense of Parental Social Control. In: Meiselwitz, G. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media: Experience Design and Social Network Analysis . HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12774. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77626-8_2
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