Synopsis
Noone, Allen, Sullivan, McKenzie, Esqueda and Ibarra (2014), the authors of the article Escuchando a nuestros jóvenes: a Latino youth photovoice project on teen pregnancy, attempted to analyze the situation regarding increasing rates of teenage pregnancy among the representatives of the Latino culture. However, due to the specifics of the issue, the researchers also touched upon the Latino teenage subculture and the effect of traditions and media on it.
The goal of the paper, therefore, concerned both addressing the current social process within the Latino young subculture, and to generate a theory regarding the ways of bringing the rates of teenage pregnancy among young Latino women down.
Noone et al. (2014) used two key research tools, i.e., surveys and photovoice. While the former is a comparatively well-known tool that does not need representation, photovoice is an innovation, which the authors of the study tested. Traditionally, the photovoice method presupposes a combination of photography analysis and action research (Noone et al., 2014). The researchers never touched upon the issue of biases and preconceptions in their paper; nor did they mention any specific pieces of data.
The credibility of the paper is quite high, as it was published in a peer reviewed journal. Qualitative research as the study method can be justified by the necessity to get a deeper insight on the behavior of the research subjects. Both the use of interviews and the adoption of the photovoice method were valid and efficient, though there was only slight dynamics in the data collection and the analysis method interaction. The information retrieved from interviews and pictures justified the theory and provided a graphic portrayal of the effects of the Latino values on young Latino women (Brown, 2013).
As far as the themes are concerned, risks for teens, peer pressure, education, community resources and Latino values (Noone et al., 2014, p. 66) must be listed. The study results show that the key to reducing the rates of Latino teen pregnancy should be sought in both the specifics of Latino culture and the effects of modern media. However, Latino culture and its traditional values have been considered the factor having a major effect on pregnant Latino teenagers. The reconsideration of the role of education in the lives of Latino teenagers was viewed as the key solution to the current situation. Raising awareness among the Latino girls and young women, i.e., the potential targets of sexual predators, was also mentioned as a necessary addition to the current policies concerning sexual education (Noone et al., 2014).
Conclusions
By thinking outside the box and linking the phenomenon of teen pregnancy to both the cultural values promoted by modern media and the traditional values of the Latino culture, at the same time utilizing the Photovoice technique, which allows for linking the data acquired from social research to the information from traditional media, particularly, photographs, Noone et al. (2014) have made a breakthrough in the analysis of the issue.
While the problem of teen pregnancy among Latinos is not new, the idea of incorporating the analysis of opinions belonging to the representatives of several generations and the research of older data, let alone the data acquired from pictures, is very fresh and seems quite legitimate. It was by tying the current social and economic trends together with the traditional values of the Latino culture (e. g, the importance of a family, the concept of abortion as a cultural taboo, etc.) that the researchers came to the aforementioned conclusions, which shows in a very graphic way that photovoice, in fact, is a very efficient research tool.
It could be argued that the specified approach would not have worked in a different racial/ethnic group or in another continent. However, the contrast between the power of traditions and the effect of the current trends, which the use of photovoice allows for, is a crucial step in approaching a social problem within any cultural setting. Therefore, it can be assumed that the researchers have designed a perfect tool for a cultural analysis.
Reference List
Brown, S. J. (2013). Evidence-based nursing: The research-practice connection (3rd ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Noone, J., Allen, T., Sullivan, M., McKenzie, G., Esqueda, T. & Ibarra, N. (2014). Escuchando a nuestros jóvenes: a Latino youth photovoice project on teen pregnancy. Hispanic Health Care International, 12(2), 63–70. Web.