Breeding Grounds for Teenage Pregnancy and Motherhood: A Discussion of the Lost Years

1. Breeding Grounds for Teenage Pregnancy and Motherhood: A Discussion of the Lost Years Divine Sebuharara, M.S. Candidate • Background • Black girls have double the teen pregnancy and teen birth rates of their White counterparts (CDC, 2012; Guttmacher, 2010). • Although drop out rates for Blacks and Whites have declined over the past 20 years, Black female students have failed to have a consistent decline with fluctuations occurring nearly every other year (U.S. Department of Education, 2012). • Schooling Experiences • Schooling refers to a process in which education is institutionalized into a learning process that helps to shape the lives of children in more ways than just cognitive learning. • Professional socialization (Eisner, 1988) • Tracking and ability grouping (Gamoran, 1992) • Lack of research on schooling experiences of Black girls (Thomas, & Jackson, 2007) What are the “Lost Years”? The “lost years” refer to the vital years of a young Black girl that are often forgotten. It is a time of growth and development that is bombarded with historical social norms, social structures, and institutional structures that influence the values, self-esteem, and behaviors of a Black girl through her teenage years and for the rest of her life. Furthermore, these issues are seldom discussed in the literature due to the intense focus on Black boys who have more severe educational and social outcomes including high rates of gang affiliation, violence, drug use/dealing, and incarceration. This leads to Black girls becoming “silent sufferers” as they have other issues that they are dealing with that are simply not discussed (Thomas & Jackson, 2007, p.4). • Capital • Black girls lack the valued resources that will lead to opportunities within the schooling system. Three main forms of capital examined in this research are: • Social Capital (Dutton, Quantz, & Dutton, 2000 ) • Cultural Capital (Delpit, 1988) • Psychological Capital • Prevention: Why isn’t it working? • Much debate on the best approach to solving this problem (Card, 1999) • 1970’s – focus “care” programs which provided comprehensive pre- and postnatal health services • 1980’s – teenage pregnancy/motherhood prevention programs • 1990s - evaluations of effective ness of pregnancy prevention programs • Further debate on what the main issue is (Card, 1999): • Sex out of wedlock • Teen pregnancy • Teen parenthood • Poverty • Historical Perspective • Historically, Whites have looked to control the lives of Blacks in every way possible (Mitchell, 2008; Littlefield, 2008): • Slavery and Rape of African American women by White slave owners and scapegoating their actions with stereotypes • Education was illegal for all slaves • Segregation and Jim Crow Laws • Legal separation of all public facilities that often led to less adequate facilities for Blacks and limited opportunities Pregnancy Prevention Paradigm Shift Ithaca College Department of Health Promotion and Physical Education