J Youth Adolescence (2010) 39:1164–1174 of our sample who preferred or required to be interviewed in Spanish. Finally, our telephone survey excluded households without a telephone. Most parents want to be at the forefront of the conveyance of information, and values, about sex and sexuality to their adolescents. The majority of the parents in our sample, however, experienced some type of difﬁculty in communi- cating with their adolescents about these topics, and parents’ comfort and knowledge in this area appear to be strongly predictive of such communication taking place. Parent– adolescent communication about sex is widely viewed as a key foundation of an adolescent’s sexual socialization and sexuality education, and as a positive inﬂuence on adoles- cent sexual health outcomes (Shtarkshall et al. 2007). Our use of a representative statewide sample of households with adolescents from a large and diverse state to investigate factors that predict this communication, together with par- ents’ qualitative perspectives on their experiences in this area, adds to the existing research that can inform efforts to promote sexual communication and support parents in becoming more motivated, more comfortable, and more effective communicators. Future research should strive to use representative samples and to utilize in-depth ques- tioning with smaller samples to provide useful insight on the speciﬁc issues that can constrain or facilitate effective par- ent–adolescent sexual communication. Acknowledgments This study was funded by grants from The California Wellness Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Thanks to Paul Gibson, Chris Berry, Carmen R. Nevarez, Alice Huang, Jessica Lin, Wendy L. 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