THE ASSOCIATION OF PARENT-CHILD RAPPORT AND SOURCES OF SEXUALITY EDUCATION WITH RISK FACTORS OF SEXUAL AGGRESSION AMONGST UNDERGRADUATES IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Sexual aggression is a pervasive societal problem with detrimental consequences. It is pertinent that more resources are placed into the prevention and mitigation of sexual violence. Through the surveying of 274 undergraduates from the 6 autonomous universities in Singapore using convenience sampling, this study looks at the potential of increased parental involvement and different sources of sexuality education during adolescence in mitigating risks of sexual aggression. Due to non-normality of dependent variables, Kruskal Wallis was performed instead of ANOVA. Findings reflect that higher levels of father-child and mother-child general rapport are associated with lower permissiveness towards casual sex (χ2(2, N = 257) = 14.461, p = .001; χ2(2, N = 273) = 10.852, p = .004 respectively). Similarly, higher levels of parent-child rapport (PCR) on issues relating to sexuality is associated with less beneficial attitudes towards pornography (ATP) and permissiveness towards casual sex: respectively, father-child (χ2(2, N = 257) = 8.858, p = .012; χ2(2, N = 257) = 19.476, p = .000) and mother-child (χ2(2, N = 273) = 18.749, p = .000; χ2(2, N = 273) = 25.579, p = .000). As compared to learning from the media/internet, individuals with parents or teachers as their main sources of sexuality education during adolescence were associated with less beneficial ATP (χ2(5, N = 274) = 25.513, p = .000) and lower permissiveness towards casual sex (χ2(5, N = 274) = 34.308, p < .001). In contrast to expectations however, it was found that as compared to mainly learning from media/internet, individuals who indicated their main source during adolescence as teachers were associated with higher levels of rape myth acceptance (RMA) (χ2(5, N = 274) = 19.715, p < .001). Implications of the results are discussed through highlighting the importance of teamwork between parents and teachers, issues with abstinence-only until marriage sexuality education (AOUME) and potential for comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) to reduce sexual violence.