Family Dialogues on Sexuality: A Contingential Analysis of Gender, Care, and Mother–Adolescent Children Communication

TL;DR

This study explores how gender roles and caregiving influence conversations about sexuality between mothers and their adolescent children, revealing shifts toward more inclusive and open communication.

Contribution

The study introduces a contingential framework to analyze how social and gender norms shape family dialogues on sexuality.

Findings

Families are becoming more open to comprehensive sexuality education despite lingering avoidance patterns.

Functional delegation and adolescent mediation are key in shaping sexual education dialogues.

Emerging inclusive norms now address diverse families and LGBTIQ+ topics in these dialogues.

Abstract

From an interbehavioral and contingential perspective, family dialogues about sexuality are understood as patterns of verbal interaction regulated by social, gender, and caregiving contingencies rather than as individual attitudes or intentions. Background: This study analyzes the functional conditions under which family dialogues about sexuality occur between mothers and their adolescent sons and daughters, considering caregiving roles and gender norms that regulate these interactions. The research aimed to identify the functional relations between communicative practices and the social contingencies that maintain or inhibit them. Methods: A qualitative approach grounded in interbehavioral psychology was employed, using semistructured interviews with 40 mothers of students from a public middle school in Puebla, Mexico. Data were analyzed through contingency analysis, distinguishing micro- and macrocontingential systems related to family sexual education. Results: Results show that, although patterns of avoidance and discourse displacement toward schools or peers persist, families exhibit increasing openness toward comprehensive sexuality education and recognize its preventive value against violence, adolescent pregnancy, and misinformation. Functional delegation and adolescent mediation of dialogue were identified, along with emerging inclusive macrocontingencies linked to the acceptance of diverse families and LGBTIQ+ themes. Conclusions: It is concluded that households function as self-regulated interbehavioral systems in which historical and gender contingencies restrict sexual dialogue, yet gradual functional changes toward respect, inclusion, and shared educational responsibility are observed.