The value-systems are strong influential in influencing adolescents sexual behaviors.

Defined as adequate functioning from various systems, Adolescent's value-systems include family, school, peers and religion. The development of appropriate sexual behaviors of adolescents is the long-term goal of socialization of which the value-systems of family, peers, school and religion all contribute uniquely to the socialization process (Kandel, 1986; ReidNash, 1987). Socialization of values about sexuality is the process of integrating the individual into the social environment, along with the active development of functional social roles. This is complementary to the personal or psychological task of individuation during adolescence and the development of character and personality (Damon, 1983).

Microsystems refer to the most proximal contexts in which the young person participates directly, such as the family, the peer group, and the school. All of these socializers have substantial independent influences on the health-related attitudes and behavior of adolescents (Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Brook, Nomura, & Cohen, 1988; Entwisle, 1990; Kandel Andrews, 1987; Perry & Murray, 1982). Within families, lifestyle patterns such as overeating, cigarette smoking, and exercise habits are modeled by parents, with a resultant influence on their children (Patterson Rupp, Sallis, Atkins, & Nader, 1988; Sallis, Patterson, Buono, Atkins, & Nader, 1988). Similarly, a positive association has been noted between the number of smoking teachers in a school and adolescent smoking rates (Murray, Kiryluk, & Swan, 1984); a lower rate of smoking among students has been associated with a policy that restricted teacher smoking to the staff room, thereby precluding direct modeling (Cooreman & Perdrizet, 1980). The linkages between these microsystems form the next layer of social context, knows as mesosystems. A mesosystem is thus a system of microsystems; the consistency or inconsistency of the norms, values, and meanings of particular healthrelated behaviors among these systems influences the adoption or maintenance of those behaviors (Jessor & Jessor, 1977). The extent to which individuals in one microsystem are involved in other systems determines the strength or "richness" of the mesosystem. Thus, strong interactions between family members and school personnel, which have positive effects on student achievement and school performance (Entwisle, 1990; Epstein, 1987; Stevenson & Baker, 1987), reflect a rich mesosystem. These relationships are precisely what is in jeopardy as school population size increases and as more households consist of two parents in the work

force. With the realization that school-based programs would be more effective if reinforced in the home environment, school health campaigns of the 1980s attempted to increase these ties through the use of home-based family participation programs (Perry et al., 1988). The third layer of social context involves exosystems: settings that influence adolescents but in which they do not directly participate. Most influences of the media fall within the exosystem. These influences also include the parents' place of employment, the local school board that sets school policy, or the city council that passes local ordinances affecting adolescents (e.g., curfew or cruising laws). Community influences are also considered part of the exosystem. These include opportunities for health-enhancing or -compromising behaviors such as through the availability of cigarette vending machines, food selections, the enforcement of alcohol minimum age laws, and the existence of walking/bike trails. Mass media expose adolescents to a multitude of health-related role models, including those that model unprotected sexual behavior (Lowry & Towels, 1989a), alcohol consumption (Strasburger, 1985), and violence (Brown, 1990). Health promotion campaigns have begun to actively counterbalance health-compromising media content with health-enhancing messages. The most distal system is the macrosystem, which consists of culturally based belief systems, economic systems (e.g., capitalism), and the political system. These systems can have profound effects. For example, despite similar rates of sexual activity, European and U. S. adolescents experience different outcomes; cultural attitudes toward sexuality in Europe appear to result in lower teenage pregnancy rates due to increased contraceptive use. Bronfenbrenner (1979) cautions that systems beyond the microsystems are frequently overlooked, limiting the concept of environment to a single immediate setting containing the subject. Because the various layers of context are systems embedded within each other, what happens at one contextual level can influence what happens at others, and explanations of behavior and developmental patterns cannot be sought at only one level but may need to include several layers of context.