• Login
    View Item 
    •   KovsieScholar Home
    • KovsieJournals
    • Perspectives in Education
    • PiE 2013 Volume 31 Issue 1
    • View Item
    •   KovsieScholar Home
    • KovsieJournals
    • Perspectives in Education
    • PiE 2013 Volume 31 Issue 1
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Teenage pregnancy and parenting at school in contemporary South African contexts: deconstructing school narratives and understanding policy implementation

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    persed_v31_n1_a2.pdf (221.6Kb)
    Date
    2013-03
    Author
    Bhana, Deevia
    Morrell, Robert
    Shefer, Tamara
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    South African national education policy is committed to promoting gender equality at school and to facilitating the successful completion of all young people’s schooling, including those who may become pregnant and parent while at school. However, the experience of being pregnant and parenting while being a learner is shaped by broader social and school-based responses to teenage pregnancy, parenting and female sexuality in general. Drawing on qualitative research with a group of teachers and principals at 11 schools (over 80 interviewees) and 26 learners who are parents at school, in Cape Town and Durban, the article argues that dominant moralistic discourses on adolescence, normative gender roles and female sexuality, perpetuating the representation of teenage pregnancy as social decay and degeneration, underpin negative responses to learners. In addition, the school is constructed as a space where pregnancy and parenting are unintelligible. These discourses are shown to be experienced as exclusionary practices by some learners. The article foregrounds the imperative of addressing the larger ideological terrain that impacts on the successful implementation of the policy, recommending support for teachers in the challenges of providing meaningful guidance, constructive support and appropriate interventions in the nurturance of pregnant and parenting learners.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11660/3618
    Collections
    • PiE 2013 Volume 31 Issue 1

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2016  DuraSpace
    Contact Us | Send Feedback
     

     

    Browse

    All of KovsieScholarCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2016  DuraSpace
    Contact Us | Send Feedback