'I know I'm doing a good job': Canonical and autobiographical narratives of teenage mothers
By M. Kirkman, L. Harrison, L. Hillier, P. Pyett. 2001
107 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Teenage pregnancy is typically presented as a problem to be solved, if not as an epidemic in need of urgent intervention. This paper reports on Australian research that examined the phenomenon of teenage motherhood from the perspective of the young women themselves. The theoretical frame of narrative was adopted in order to understand both the way in which the young mothers were making sense of their own lives, and the way in which they interpreted the canonical narrative of teenage motherhood. Interviews with 20 young mothers demonstrated both their awareness of the canonical narrative, in which they are judged and condemned, and their contrasting autobiographical narratives, in which they are represented as good mothers who are capable of learning the skills of motherhood. Although the women refused to emphasise the disadvantages of teenage motherhood, they acknowledged difficulties. Throughout their autobiographical accounts, a 'consoling plot' was evident. Young women may be supported in their endeavour to emplot their lives to their own benefit by family narratives of teenage motherhood.
Subfields: General Health Professions, Health, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f59a94f877c3f0afafb551ccde5e657823373dec
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In General Health Professions
In Health
In Sociology and Political Science
Citations in the corpus
- ‘Planned’ Teenage Pregnancy: Perspectives of Young Women from Disadvantaged Backgrounds in England (2006, result): “It is clear that this study supports evidence of the perceived positive outcomes of teenage motherhood reported from qualitative investigations in other westernised nations (Arenson 1994; Lesser et al. 1998; Rains et al. 1998; Kirkman et al. 2001).”
- Low Expectations, Sexual Attitudes and Knowledge: Explaining Teenage Pregnancy and Fertility in English Communities. Insights from Qualitative Research (2003, methodology): “Qualitative research has enriched the literature on youthful sexuality, pregnancy and childbearing (see, for example, de Jonge, 2001; Kirkman et al., 2001; Sciarra and Ponterotto, 1998; Tabberer et al., 2000) but there is still a need for further qualitative work in this area and, since the focus…”
- Hindsight, foresight and insight: The challenges of longitudinal qualitative research (2003, background): “…approach to qualitative analysis demands that we look analytically in two directions: cross-sectionally in order to identify discourses through which identities are constructed, and longitudinally at the development of a particular narrative over time (see Kirkman et al. 2001 for this distinction).”
- Teenage mothers’ experiences of stigma (2008, unknown): “It has been suggested that teenage mothers cope with this stigma by developing a ‘consoling plot’ (Kirkman et al. , 2001) or ‘good mother identity’ (McDermott and Graham 2005), whereby they emphasise their strengths in order to create a positive identity, drawing on the beliefs that they are…”