Critique I

Schooler, Deborah. Real Women Have Curves: A Longitudinal Investigation of TV and the Body Image Development of Latina Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 132-153, March 2008

Schooler is looking into how media images affect the body image development of Latina adolescents. Schooler says that “Latina adolescents must negotiate between the cultural values provided by dominant white culture and those provided by their Latino/a families, communities, and cultures”. Most women in North America equate beauty with their success and that the dominant beauty ideal is a woman who is tall, typically has light skin tone with European features and above all be extremely thin, however Latina adolescents are taught a different ideal body image. In their families, the girls are supported to have a more curvy body than the dominant white ideal, a woman with a slender waist but larger breasts, hips and a round behind, which is more along the line of what African American culture sees women as. Schooler says that with the increase in media watching and intake of adolescents today, using it as a way to acculturate into mainstream culture, Latina girls are surrounded by the images of the ideal thin woman.

Schooler considered her participants’ use of mainstream, Spanish-language and Black-oriented television. She used these because of the different messages about body ideals that was conveyed by the different genres and because of the different salience and relevance these genres might have on a Latina adolescent. She “expected that different associations with body image will emerge for each of these genres”. Schooler also looked into the “role of acculturation in Latina adolescents’ body image development”. She examined the interactions between the television exposure and acculturation with the importance of mainstream, Black-oriented and Spanish-language television depending on the girls’ acculturation status.

Schooler’s research group was a diverse sample of 81 Latina adolescents from the Northeast U.S. with the majority of Puerto Rican or Dominican descent; they were spread out in the 8^th, 9^th and 10^th grades. Schooler justifies her choice of region because these youths would be living in a predominantly White region of the country and these girls may be highly motivated to learn about mainstream, White cultural values. Schooler used a longitudinal method to study how the “contribution of television exposure at one point to changes in body image over time”. Schooler had them fill out questionnaires assessing their television viewing habits and body satisfaction, then resurveyed them two years later. She was only able to get 52 of the original 81 girls.

Schooler found that when compared to studies conducted with White and African American samples, Latina girls may have a more complex view of body image. Latina adolescents who may be more acculturated may see White actresses as valid images to compare their bodies with. Schooler found that including acculturation in studies of Latina body image development is highly important. She found that girls who are more acculturated show a greater decline in their body image across adolescence. Schooler findings show that Latina adolescents work in the White and Latino/a culture along with the African American culture. Meaning they can be influenced by both the white, thin ideal but also find refuge in the Black-oriented television.

I find that Schooler study is quite interesting, then that she is working with a very complex issue; adolescent body image development, but then adds the highly complex issues of race, in this case Latino/a. I think Schooler’s study and research has an importance in how one looks at their television intake and their growing body image, but more importantly it has me focusing on how society’s focus of the white, thin ideal woman affects how a Latina adolescent looks are herself and her self worth. She brings about more questions with her answers, saying that this study can bring about important connections to American Indian or Asian culture, also it can be modified to study any subculture and its interaction with mainstream media.

Schooler looks at this study from a sociological and women’s studies perspective. She shows how not just one thing affects these girls, that there are multiple factors in their lives, multiple disciplines. They do not just have society barring down on them, they have their own cultural views and values as well. This article fit great into my research project because it is specifically looking at how media can affect minority women. But it also adds the depth of their cultural values into the equation too, which would bring a whole new dimension into my research.