Female adolescents' experiences of romantic relationships

Abstract

Relationships play an important role in an adolescent’s psycho-social development, part of this development is participation in intimate and romantic relationships. Such romantic relationships to a large extent feature in adolescents’ social life and as a result adolescents tend to invest a great amount of time in these relationships. This mini-dissertation examines female adolescents’ experiences of romantic relationships. This study draws on the experiences and views of white, Afrikaans female adolescents from conservative middle to upper class backgrounds. Social constructionism is used to contribute to understanding these experiences within their specific context that shape their expectations and behaviour. This study draws the conclusion that even though adolescents have their own ideals and expectations of romantic relationships, these do reflect those ideals and expectations held by society. Agents of socialisation such as parents, peers and the media shape these ideals and expectations. Furthermore it indicates the prevalence of increasing use of social media in relationships and normalisation of sexting.