In writing a book, one starts with a thorough search of the literature, looking especially for data from researches utilizing a compatible conceptual framework. The search for data on the sexual encounters of adolescents has been made, and the findings are incorporated in the chapters to follow. However, this book contains original data as well as an integration of the research data of others.
In collecting data for the Martinson Report and in subsequent
research, we visited six communities, observing and interviewing around the general
question: what is it like to grow up sexually in this community? Four of the sample
areas are in Minnesota-two rural communities, one suburban community, and one
inner-city (Minneapolis) community; one community is in an urban residential area in
the state of New York, and one is a rural community in New Jersey. Similarly, data
was gathered in two communities in southern Sweden, but that data is essentially
tangential in the present study.
In each community, members of our research team
spent a month or more living, observing life, talking with, and interviewing people-
both teenagers and adults. In all cases, the field workers, other than myself, were
college students or recent college graduates averaging about twenty years of age. They
were trained in survey research methods and in interviewing, and were under my
general supervision while they were in the field. Secondly, I personally gathered sex
and dating histories from over one thousand college students attending a Minnesota
liberal arts college covering the years from about 1955 through 1971.
I have also
gathered similar data from a group of Swedish university students, but that data is
not directly incorporated in this report. Lastly, the sample includes data from
structured interviews with two hundred unwed mothers receiving casework services
through a private childcare agency in Minnesota.
Data from the Martinson Report and other case data from the author's files are
drawn essentially from a youthful population, essentially middle-class, high school
(and partially college) educated, mainly from the Upper Midwest USA, mainly
Protestant, and predominantly white. Hence, it does not represent a national
population, nor is it representative of any one clearly-delineated universe. Hence, no
tabulation is made of the incidence of various kinds of sexual encounters or their
frequency.
The study instead demonstrates the importance of using data from first
person life histories. Such data illuminates qualities and dimensions of life that are
often missed through traditional survey methods.
Persons too numerous to mention have had a part in implementing research that
provided the major part of the data for this book. Though I deeply appreciate their
efforts, I cannot begin to name them all. But the following persons have been
particularly influential and are deserving of special recognition: Edgar M. Carlson,
James K. Merrill, John D. Blair, and Beatrice A. Martinson.
Furuly Floyd M. Martinson
Summer 1973