Cultural Capital and High Risk Behaviors Among Youth

High risk behaviors increase the likelihood of destructive physical, psychological and social consequences for the individual. These behaviors are evident among adolescents who are extremely dependent on each other and follow their peers' patterns. Moreover, sexual risk-taking has been recently highlighted as a reason for unplanned pregnancy, infectious diseases and HIV (1). Cultural capital, a sociological term, has been extensively used since its introduction by Bourdieu in 1973. According to him, cultural capital consists of knowledge , skills, education and advantages an individual that allows him/her to attain a higher social status (2). Yazd University with a total of almost 10000 students was selected as the study population and a sample was chosen via proportionate classification method. In this method, the number of subjects in each major based on total number of subjects in that major was randomly selected. The formula for sample calculation is as follows: [n = (N × t 2 × p × q) / (N × d 2 + t 2 × p × q)], Where n denotes sample size, N refers to population size, p refers to proportion of the population with certain characteristics, q refers to proportion of the population lacks certain characteristics, d refers to confidence interval, and t refer to confidence level respectively. To collect the required data, a questionnaire including 6 demographic items (researcher-made), 15 cultural capital items (researcher–made), and 33 items (standard) related to high risk behaviors was used. To analyze the data, SPSS software version 16 was applied. Chronbach's alpha, an index for measurement of internal reliability, achieved 0.75, which shows a reasonable rate of reliability for all items when α = .05. Items of the questionnaire assessed three states of cultural capital; the embodied state (reading book, papers, magazines, use of the internet, and knowing a foreign language), the objectified state (possessing written cultural products , audio and video products and cultural instruments), and the institutionalized state(a series of educational certificates, attending art, sport and religious classes and seminars), and their association with high risk behaviors (drugs addiction, smoking, alcohol use, aggression, opposite sex relation and dangerous driving). To examine the cultural capital association with the incidence of high risk behaviors, the Pearson's correlation coefficient was used. The coefficient correlation value was equal to-0.255 when significant level was at 0.000. So, there was a negative and weak correlation between cultural capital and the incidence of high risk behaviors …