The Context of Risky Behaviors among Adolescents and Youth in Kashan

Abstract

The tendency to engage in high-risk behaviors among adolescents and young adults has become a major concern in today's society. This study aims to provide a qualitative study of the phenomenon of high-risk behaviors among adolescents and young people in order to provide a clear understanding of the reasons and grounds for its spread. This research has been done qualitatively and with a grand theory approach. The sampling method was purposeful with a theoretical sampling strategy and the data collection method was an in-depth semi-structured interview with 25 people, including two groups with high-risk behaviors and aware of social harms in Kashan. The findings consist of 48 conceptual codes and 11 main categories including: family context, loneliness, traumatic environmental conditions, economic challenge and desire for pleasure as causal conditions, disruption of inter-family relationships, feelings of injustice and institutional dysfunction as contextual and effective conditions. The media, misconceptions, and greed are categorized as intervening. The main phenomenon of the research is named according to the categories formed as "high-risk behaviors of the product of social disorganization". Thus, social disorganization has been identified as the most important component of the formation of high-risk behaviors among adolescents and young people.

Keywords

• risky behaviors
• family background
• institutional maladaptation
• economic challenge
• desire for pleasure