Abstract
Adolescents’ risky sexual behaviors are a serious public health concern in the United States. This study used the Center for Disease Control’s 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey to examine the complex relationships among social capital, cultural capital, and adolescents’ risky sexual behaviors. Analysis of the data revealed statistically significant relationships between social and cultural capital and risky sexual behaviors. The effect of social capital was stronger than the effect of cultural capital, even though both were weak predictors. Moreover, the impacts of social and cultural capital differ for males and females, resulting in contrasting outcomes in sexual behaviors. For example, females with higher levels of social and cultural capital were more likely to resist engaging in risky sexual behaviors, while the opposite was true for males. This indicates that social institutions in the United States continue to reproduce traditional gender ideologies, even when attempting to educate young people about the risks associated with sexual activities. Therefore social scientists need to continuously re-evaluate the effects and potential benefits associated with social and cultural capital and the ways in which both forms of capital produce differential effects in actual female and male sexual behaviors.