Introduction
In a book on preventing early pregnancy and poor reproductive outcomes in developing countries, the World Health Organization (2011) declares that “adolescent pregnancy” contributes to maternal, perinatal, and infant mortality and to a vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health. This statement reflects the common public assumption that “teenage pregnancy” represents an individual, social, health, educational, and financial risk that requires remediation. This kind of public perception is spurred by media coverage in which young girls with large protruding stomachs are etched in profile and stories of calamity are told (e.g., Time (21 June 2005) magazine).
And yet the very notion of “teenage pregnancy” is a relatively recent one. Depending on the country one talks about, it has been around since between the1960s and 1980s. In the United States, for example, the rise of “teenage pregnancy” as a social problem was associated with a shift in gendered power relations. Prior to the...
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Macleod, C. (2014). Teenage Pregnancy. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_310
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