J Youth Adolescence (2010) 39:1164–1174 Participants For the present study, we used a subset of interviews consisting of the 907 parents who had a child between the ages of 8 and 18 years. Demographic data collected about the responding parents included gender, age, Hispanic ethnicity, race, education, and religious attendance in a typical month. Three-fourths of the parents were female, and almost two-thirds were aged 40 years or older. Forty- four percent of the parents were Hispanic, and 40% were non-Hispanic White. In answering the questions used in the present study, parents were asked to focus on their child or one of their children who was between the ages of 8 and 18 years. Demographic data collected about the adolescents included age and gender. The mean age of the adolescents was 12.9 years, and 51.4% were male. For several analyses, adolescents’ ages were collapsed into four categories: preadolescent (ages 8–10 years), early adolescent (ages 11–13 years), middle adolescent (ages 14–16 years), and late adolescent (ages 17–18 years). Because the late-adolescent age category comprised just 2 years, whereas the other three age categories comprised 3 years, fewer adolescents are included in this category than in the others. The demographic characteristics of the responding parents and the adolescents are presented in Table 1. Measurement As one part of the interview, we asked parents to respond to a series of three closed-ended and one open-ended question about sexual communication. The ﬁrst closed-ended question was, ‘‘Thinking about your nn year-old, have you ever talked with him (or her) about… (a) the basic facts of human reproduction, (b) issues involved in becoming sexually active, (c) the advantages for a young person of avoiding sexual intercourse, (d) HIV/AIDS and other sex- ually transmitted infections (STIs), (e) the importance of using protection, such as condoms, to prevent pregnancy or diseases if he (or she) becomes sexually active, and (f) where to get condoms?’’ Response options were ‘‘yes’’ and ‘‘no.’’ Using the six dichotomous sex education topics, we constructed a 6-item summated scale for number of topics discussed. This scale yielded a coefﬁcient alpha of .86 and a Mokken scale analysis homogeneity coefﬁcient of .73. The second closed-ended question was, ‘‘Overall, how comfortable do you feel talking with your nn year-old about sex and relationships?’’ Response options were very comfortable, somewhat comfortable, somewhat uncom- fortable, and very uncomfortable. The third closed-ended question was, ‘‘And how knowledgeable do you feel talk- ing with your nn year-old about sex and relationships?’’ Response options were very knowledgeable, somewhat Table 1 Demographic characteristics of survey respondents and adolescents (N = 907) Demographic characteristic Parent gender Male Female Parent age Under 30 30–39 40–49 50 and over Missing Parent race and ethnicity Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Asian American African American, non-Hispanic Other, non-Hispanic Missing Parent education Less than high school High school or GED Some college College Graduate school Missing Parent religious attendance in a typical month Rarely Few times per year 1–3 times per month 1 time per week More than 1 time per week Missing Adolescent gender Male Female Adolescent age group Preadolescent (ages 8–10 years) Early adolescent (ages 11–13 years) Middle adolescent (ages 14–16 years) Late adolescent (ages 17–18 years) Numbers and percentages are weighted n 219 688 58 279 382 186 3 397 359 55 52 36 9 163 254 179 183 126 1 250 160 144 236 108 10 466 441 251 255 256 144 1167 % 24.2 75.8 6.4 30.7 42.1 20.5 0.3 43.8 39.6 6.0 5.7 3.9 1.0 18.0 28.1 19.7 20.2 13.8 0.1 27.5 17.6 15.8 26.0 11.9 1.1 51.4 48.6 27.7 28.1 28.3 15.9 knowledgeable, somewhat unknowledgeable, and very unknowledgeable. The open-ended question was, ‘‘What is the most difﬁ- cult part for you in talking to your child about sex and relationships?’’ Interviewers probed for clarity as necessary and entered the parents’ responses into the database verbatim. A professional translator later translated the Spanish-language responses, and a second professional 123