Teenage Parents

Offers a review of the latest literature but moreover a practical guide essential to professionals who give their expert opinions to courts in child care cases.

Research on development during adolescence has flourished in the past decade, as scholars from many disciplines focused their attention on phenomena of maturation within different social contexts. This volume includes approaches from a variety of social science disciplines investigating adolescent transitions in three domains: the peer system, the family system, and school and work contexts. Different modes of investigation (e.g., survey research and ethnographic studies) and varieties of transitions that different adolescents experience add to the richness of the research tapestry presented. In addition to their focus on research, the chapters reflect recent advances in how adolescent transitions are conceptualized, strategies for interventions, and policy implications.

Since the passage of Title IX in 1972, guaranteeing the right to equal education, the challenge of educating teen mothers has fallen to schools. In Unfit Subjects, Wanda Pillow presents a critical analysis of the ways in which educational policy defines and addresses teen pregnancy. Unfit Subjects traces the successes and failures in educating pregnant teens from 1972 to the present to inform an equitable educational policy that will finally make room for these young women.

Deirdre M. Kelly is Associate Professor of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia.

In this book the authors examine in depth the lives of inner-city adolescent mothers, going beyond stereotypes to illuminate the diverse pathways to young adulthood taken by these young women. The different ways they respond to becoming a parent reflect a range of abilities, aspirations, and supports. Their often-creative solutions to living in poverty, the intensity of their desires to make their children's lives better, the height of their youthful ambition when they succeed, and the depth of their pain when they fail, all show a surprising range. The authors argue that adolescent mothers who enter young adulthood with the skills and desires to care for themselves and their children are not the resilient few and present a lengthy analysis of the multidimensional processes that lead to and characterize this resilience. In making constructive suggestions for social welfare policies and reforms, this book serves as an ideal model of the important uses of qualitative research for understanding the adolescent experience. More than that, the book stands out among others by this social policy perspective and its focus on encouraging adolescent mothers to reach their potentials. This volume aims to attract those who wish to learn more about the adolescent experience without getting lost in the detail of the methods and analyses. To this end, the main body of the text presents general methods and results. Scholarly details of the work are placed in appendices to which the interested reader can refer. A second highlight is the inclusion of impressionistic material, such as quotes from the adolescent mothers who were participants in this research. Such material brings to life the real issues of very real adolescents--their triumphs and struggles, their riches and poverty, their strengths and weaknesses.

There is a feeling of helplessness in the hearts of many parents. The social problems that they formerly only read about in newspapers are becoming manifest in their child's school, in their neighborhoods, and in their own homes. This is the most appropriate time for a book that affirms the importance of good parenting in preventing delinquency, drug abuse, and teen pregnancy and promoting happiness and a desire for achievement. Why Parents Matter challenges parents and parental figures to take responsibility for their children.

Kathleen Mullan Harris reveals the relationship between black teenage mothers and the welfare system. Does welfare encourage them to maintain a life of dependency? How does education, marriage, and employment impact this relationship? How do these women escape dependency? Harris's account is based on Frank Furstenberg's Baltimore study, which began in the 1960s and has continued for more than 20 years. This study traces the paths of these mothers and provides commentary on the changes in the welfare system and the way society perceives welfare recipients. Not only are job prospects worse today but so are welfare benefits, and the abortion rate has risen drastically.

Elizabeth Merrick is currently an adjunct professor at Baruch College, City University of New York.