| Abstract: | Currently, the profession of social work has proclaimed the need for an empirical research agenda to broadenits knowledge base. The profession's positivists rightly argue that a sound knowledge base is derived from rigorous scientific empirical methods. Unquestionably, the Jonckheere's unique contribution to the study of human development has been its emphasis on environmental effects and individual adaptation. Presently, social scientists embrace an ecological perspective when studying how social environmental effects are mediated. As researchers shift to a social ecological perspective, an empirical contextual model will allow the study of racial/ethnic differences in the incidence of adolescent problem behaviors (Stevens, 1998). An examination of the social ecology of poor, urban black female adolescents was undertaken to examine claims of the co-occurrence of early coitus and substance use, behaviors evident in black adolescents. An ecological framework operationalized by the constructs structural strain, kinscriptions and community bridging is used to explicate how coital behavior among black females may not co-occur with drug use. The article's exegesis is directed by four postulates that help clarify the relationship of social ecology to the linkage of early coital behavior and substance use. The article concludes with adolescent narratives that illumine the cogency of the ecological analysis. |
