Early-Childhood

Girlhood Studies 
Call for Papers 

Pregnant and Parenting Girls: How is Young Motherhood Experienced, Conceptualized, and Researched? 

In this special issue, we aim to foster an in-depth understanding of how young motherhood among girls below the age of 20 is experienced and researched and of the impact such research has on these girls' lives in different global contexts. Despite the international commitments to human rights and social justice such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the legal and institutional frameworks in many parts of the world often disregard the rights of girls including the need to prevent pregnancy among adolescents and reduce pregnancy-related mortality when working towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals 3 (good health and wellbeing and 5 (gender equality). 

Pregnant girls and young mothers are either ignored in research and practice or are framed in negative and deficit ways. For example, adolescent girls and their babies face higher health risks; these girls have been described as more likely to have a mental health diagnosis (Sekharan et al. 2015), misuse substances, be precariously housed, or lack prenatal care (Fleming et al. 2013). Young motherhood has also been held responsible for contributing to the pervasion of gender inequities in education (Bhana et al. 2013). Many girls are pressured or forced to drop out of school, thus reducing their economic prospects and making them more likely to experience poverty. They are also more likely to enter into child marriage, and to experience domestic violence. 

There is a dearth of scholarly literature that addresses pregnant and parenting girls from the perspective of their agency and strengths, while illuminating the structural barriers to their wellbeing. We welcome articles that question these oppressive and exclusionary frameworks of research and practice. Articles could include young mothers' first-person narratives about their capabilities as knowers, knowledge producers, and tellers of their stories. We invite scholars, researchers, activists, and practitioners to contribute their original research articles, theoretical explorations, case studies, and interdisciplinary analyses that focus on pregnant girls and young mothers aged under 20 to enrich the discourse in offering greater detail based on intensive research. We encourage submissions that delve into the various dimensions of this critical topic, including but not limited to the following issues. 

How does young motherhood affect girls living in poverty, those experiencing food insecurity, and those who are homeless and how does being participants in research affect them? 

How do parental and family support systems (or a lack thereof) affect girls and young women, and how does being participants in such research affect them? 

What are the implications of parental rights such as those that provoked the 1 Million March 4 Children in September 2023? 

How do pregnant and parenting girls express and live out their agency and decision-making processes?  

Do pregnant adolescents experience physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being? What can be done about those who do not? 

Is medical assistance, in the form of midwives, doulas, or others available to pregnant adolescent girls? 

What are the sociocultural perceptions related to young motherhood and what effect do these have on these girls? 

What policies are there on abortion in cases of adolescent pregnancy in different global contexts and what are the implications of these? 

Are there any policies/programmes available to support specific pregnant or parenting adolescent girls? Is educational and vocational training available to them? 

Do local school policies include or exclude young mothers and pregnant girls from the classroom and from participating in educational opportunities? How does this affect them and how does being research participants affect them? 

Does adolescent pregnancy lead to forced or early marriage for these girls? Does it lead to increased rates of domestic violence? What are the implications of these outcomes? 

Are there government support systems for pregnant and parenting girls? If so, how do they work? If not, what can be done about this? 

What effect do the intersectional systems of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and disability have on pregnant girls?  What can be done about this? 

What are the implications of the portrayal and representation of pregnant and parenting girls in media and popular culture? 

Submissions should include original insights, rigorous analysis, and innovative perspectives to advance the existing knowledge on young motherhood in the field of Girlhood Studies. We encourage diverse theoretical frameworks and methodologies that recognize the agency and voices of the girls themselves. 

Guest Editors 

This special issue will be edited by Doris Kakuru and Grace Bantebya Kyomuhendo. Please send inquiries to [log in to unmask] 

Doris Kakuru holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from Wageningen University, Netherlands. 

She is a Child and Youth Care Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada. She is an interdisciplinary scholar working in the broad area of girlhood studies and girls' geographies in relation to social justice. Her research program interrogates the violations of girls’ rights that are underpinned by the pervasiveness of age-based power and adult privilege in decision-making concerning young people. Adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights is a major strand of her research program. She currently leads a team of scholars who have been researching young motherhood in Uganda since 2020.  

Grace Bantebya Kyomuhendo holds a PhD from the University of Hull, United Kingdom. A social anthropologist with a wealth of experience in feminist gender research and an advocate for gender equality, social transformation, and respect for women’s rights, she is a professor in Women and Gender Studies at Makerere University. Her current work focuses on teenage pregnancy and young motherhood, adolescent girls’ empowerment, gender justice and norm change, and the prevention of sexual harassment of young women in institutions of higher education. 

Abstract and Article Submission 

Abstracts are due by 17 June 2024, and should be sent to [log in to unmask] 

Full manuscripts are due by 15 November 2024. 

Authors should provide a cover page giving brief biographical details (up to 100 words), institutional affiliation(s) and complete contact information, including an email address. 

Articles may be no longer than 6,500 words and no shorter than 6000, including the abstract (up to 125 words), keywords (6 to 8 in alphabetical order), notes, captions and tables, acknowledgements (if any), biographical details (taken from the cover page and not exceeding 100 words), and references. Girlhood Studies, following Berghahn's preferred house style, uses a modified Chicago Style. Please refer to the Style Guide http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/ghs/girlhood-studies_style_guide.pdf 

References 

Sekharan, Vineeth S., Theresa H.M. Kim, Elizaveta Oulman, and Hala Tamim. 2015. 	"Prevalence and Characteristics of Intended Adolescent Pregnancy: An Analysis of the 	Canadian Maternity Experiences Survey." Reproductive Health 12 (1): 1–6. 

Fleming, Nathalie, Natalia Ng, Christine Osborne, Shawna Biederman, Abdool Shafaaz Yasseen 	III, Jessica Dy, Ruth Rennicks White, and Mark Walker. 2013. "Adolescent Pregnancy 	Outcomes in the Province of Ontario: A Cohort Study." Journal of Obstetrics and 	Gynaecology Canada 35 (3): 234–245. 

Bhana, Deevia, and Sithembile Judith Mcambi. 2013. "When Schoolgirls Become Mothers: 	Reflections from a Selected Group of Teenage Girls in Durban." Perspectives in 	Education 31 (1): 11–19. 
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