Adolescent girls' access to capital resources in the family, *education, and religion and their attitude and behaviors regarding nonmarital childbearing

The primary purpose of this project is to explore the relationships between adolescent girls' access to social capital, across multiple institutional domains, and their nonmarital childbearing related attitude and behaviors. We explore whether social capital, in the institutions of the family, school, and religion, is associated with the likelihood that adolescent girls have a favorable attitude toward nonmarital childbearing. We also explore whether social capital in these institutions is associated with girls' likelihoods of ever having had sex or having used birth control at their last sex. In the institutions of the family and education, we explore whether girls' access to norm based capital (Coleman 1988, 1990), in the forms of perceived parental acceptance of their having sexual intercourse and their own educational aspirations, is related to our outcomes of interest. Across each institutional domain, we explore racial differences in the relationships between black and white girls' access to social capital and their attitude and behaviors regarding nonmarital childbearing.;A secondary purpose of this project is to explore the relationships between adolescent girls' access to capital resources that are related to their families' socioeconomic wellbeing and our outcomes of interest. We also explore whether racial differences in girls' attitude toward nonmarital childbearing and their experience of ever having had intercourse are explained by their access to capital resources that are related to their families' socioeconomic wellbeing.;For the most part, we predict that the greater girls' access to institution based social capital and capital resources that are indicative of their families' socioeconomic wellbeing, the less likely they will have a favorable attitude toward nonmarital childbearing, the less likely they will be sexually experienced, and the more likely they will be to have used birth control at their last sex. This prediction is generally supported.