Jaccard served on the core team that designed the survey of some 20,000 adolescents and he is conducting analyses of the data. He is shown here with social psychology students. When it comes to teen-agers and parents and sex and alcohol, you could say that James Jaccard has heard it all. It's worth it.
Parents do make a difference.
I think researchers are coming to realize just how important parents are. Some might say it's an obvious truth. But, says Jaccard, too many parents don't believe it, or they don't know the best ways to talk with their teen-agers. And even in his field, says Jaccard, he's had to overcome the view that parents have little effect on adolescents. Many years ago when I first started looking at prevention approaches to teen-age pregnancies, I did a thorough review of the literature on the topic.