Sexualidades, Juventude e Gravidez Adolescente a Noroeste de Portugal

Funding 
This work is funded by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE and National Funds through FCT-Foundation for Science and Technology within the project PTDC/SDE/67931/2006

 

Reference
PTDC/SDE/67931/2006

 

Main researcher
Laura Fonseca

 

Research Team
Helena C. Araújo
Joana Silva
Katherine Redgrave
Luciana Mendonça
Márcia Delgado
Maria do Carmo Marques
Paulo Nogueira
Sofia Santos

 

Duration
01.09.2007 - 31.10.2010

 

Partner institutions
APEM - Associação Portuguesa de Estudos sobre as Mulheres

 

Abstract
'Sexualities, youth and teenage pregnancy' is a research project focusing on young people’s sexualities, seeking to investigate how citizenship relates to sexualities, pregnancy and young parenthood. These issues will be explored within the contemporary context of changing femininities and masculinities, where various emerging subjects are claiming a space. 

The proposal is to undertake a study positioned with reference to the politics of difference that involves diverse social groups, and to sexual citizenship. Using the 'sociological imagination' both theoretically and empirically, the aim is to contribute to the field of citizenships, through research into sexualities, sexual health and youth cultures. Multiple methods will be used in several centres, including both urban and more isolated rural settings in the districts of Porto and Aveiro. An additional focus in the light of this perspective is sexual identities and the possibilities of choosing or repressing sexualities, aspects that are frequently neglected by social science. This will be from a research perspective that analyses the power relations embedded in diverse contexts, as well as the structures of inequality and difference based on gender, class and ethnicity. These matters are central to the debate on citizenship today, in which the interaction of masculinities and femininities has become an important research focus, as well an issue of social complexity, also because of the pressure of new subjects and social movements for citizenship rights. 

The project proposes firstly to undertake an extensive study with a purposive sample of young men and women with different experiences relating to their sexual and reproductive lives. It seeks to explore their perspectives on citizenship and sexualities, within the context of the 'extension of adolescence' and the increasingly multicultural dimension of today’s societies. It will focus on: teenage pregnancy and parenthood, educational and career paths, domestic situations, ethnic origins, nationality, social and emotional lives and expectations and transitions. Diverse aspects of young people’s citizenship will be ‘captured’ using semi-structured interviews in schools, vocational training centres, local authority care or other local settings. 

Secondly, the production of knowledge about perspectives on citizenship has particular relevance to how the phenomenon of teenage pregnancy and young parenthood is understood. Considering the relationship between the social and the sexual (Lees 2000) encourages us to highlight the material, social and discursive conditions associated with teenage pregnancy, as well as its impact on the life courses of subjects with different experiences. Existing approaches to teenage pregnancy will be assessed, in order to highlight the heterogeneity of the phenomenon and its relation to contexts, complementing the interviews with young people. Teenage pregnancy cannot be dissociated from the structures of power and difference inherent to youth cultures, learning, and sexual experimentation (Heiborn et al. 2002). Interviews will give a voice to professionals who develop national and/or local ‘strategies’ for the prevention of pregnancy and/or sexually transmitted infections. The aim is to understand how ‘young mothers’ are constructed discursively and positioned in places and life courses which limit their choices (Lees 2000). In this way, we will gain access to the ways of understanding sexualities and teenage pregnancy found among professionals and the public.

Finally, knowledge about lived experiences will be gained though sexual narratives and biographical dialogues of young women with experiences of teenage pregnancy. This will allow us gain insight into their genuine awareness, recognition, respect and power, in contrast to the dominant view. In reality an analysis of the multiple meanings and ways in which young people’s bodies and sexualities are regulated goes beyond the ways the fertile body is put under pressure, and the stratified or idealised discourses.

The contexts of inequality and power have an impact on expectations, subjectivities and decisions about relationships and sexuality. The methodological approach of listening to the young women’s voices and narratives can help us to understand their own terms, conditions and cultural practices, going beyond the appropriations about teenage mothers and their babies (Lourenço 1998, Lees 2000, Aapola et al. 2005, Almeida et al. 2004, Vilar e Garpar 1999). 

In this sense, the project can provide an opportunity and a challenge to re-examine concepts and re-evaluate the persistence of maternity/paternity among teenagers, as well as helping to rethink education for citizenship, promoting sexual health (WHO 2002) and wellbeing.