ABSTRACT
Risk is inherent in life and part of our everyday experience; it cannot be avoided and we have to live with it. Risk helps adolescents acquire maturing experiences, become aware of their limitations and gain knowledge about themselves (France 2000; Lupton and Tulloch 2002; Meneses, Gil and Romo 2010). Risk behaviours are not uniform, and gender, ethnicity and social class are essential factors for understanding the perception of risk and responses to it (Bimbela and Cruz 1997; Romo 2005). Risk behaviours relating to drug use, vehicle driving or unprotected sexual relationships are usually associated with, and determined by, transversal categories such as gender (Best et al. 2001). Thus, according to the so-called ‘white male’ effect, the perception and assessment of risk by white men differs from that of women and of other ethnic groups (Finucane et al. 2000), or to frame it in another way, risk perception differs between people with higher and lower socioeconomic power or status (Kawachi and Kennedy 1997; Mackenbach 2006). The differential socialisation and education of boys and girls means that this situation, observed in adulthood, can also be discerned in adolescence.
