Background: The study aimed to examine the impact of household composition and satisfaction with family life on sexual behaviours among high school male and female students (aged 11-22 years) in Hong Kong.; Method: High schools were randomly selected, and the final sample comprised 25 schools. Students were divided into two groups ('living with both biological parents' vs 'not living with both biological parents'). Students were asked to rate their satisfaction with family life on a five-point Likert scale in a self-administered questionnaire. Dependent variables were sexual experience, sexual harassment, sexting and nude chats. Multiple logistic regression was used to analyse the results.; Results: 3907 students were included in the analysis. 202 students (5.2%) were sexually active. 505 students had ever (13.0%) sexually harassed others and 303 students (7.8%) had ever been sexually harassed by others. 58 students (1.5%) had ever had nude chats. 1005 students (25.8%) had sexted in the last 12 months. Students who lived with both biological parents were less like to be sexually active, to sext and to have nude chats than those who did not. Students who had higher family life satisfaction were less likely to be sexually active, to sexually harass others, to be sexually harassed by others, to sext and to have nude chats than students who had lower satisfaction with their family life.; Conclusions: Sexual health programmes and interventions should consider family functioning. Students who have low family satisfaction and those who do not live with both their biological parents should be targeted for sexual health interventions.
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Similar to an international trend, Hong Kong girls have either caught up with or surpassed boys in access to education and academic performance. Such progress has been confirmed with systemic census and education participation data. However, there is little knowledge on how it has happened. Much has yet to be studied in two dimensions of the problem – girls’ subjectivities in terms of their gendered identity formation and its interaction with the public discourse on gender relations and educational provision, and the epistemological issues of gendering in knowledge acquisition and assessment. In this paper I examine girls’ participation in education in the context of policy and social development. Their gains in education are an incidental product more of uncoordinated policy and social developments than an ideology of gender equity. On the other hand, studies comparing gender difference in education tend to focus on the extent to which girls are catching up in enrollment and academic performance scores. A review of these studies raises questions on what is being compared, why, and whether numerical gender parity or a deeper sense of fairness is the ultimate objective of intellectual inquiry into the issue. There is a need to shift attention from the structural to the personal, such as the gendered nature of values and identity formation of boys and girls which impact on their educational participation, and the ways in which they negotiate with the social constraints as well as potential on gender roles.