This document includes the testimony of 52 witnesses at the subcommittee hearings on work, education, and training opportunities for welfare recipients. Topics covered in the testimony include the following: (1) state differences in welfare services; (2) problems in current welfare policies; (3) programs to address teenage pregnancy and parenting;…

This report presents an overview of programs that may have a potential for prevention of teenage pregnancy. The report starts with a summary of expert opinions on the dimensions of and solutions to the problem and then describes several relatively successful programs. Following this is an overview of interventions with an analysis of program…

Teenage pregnancy is an overwhelming problem in Fort Worth, Texas. To examine the problem of teenage pregnancy, figures on total live births by age, race, repeat pregnancy, and at-risk infants were gathered from 1981 and 1982 Department of Public Health data. In addition, consequences of teenage pregnancy and motivation factors were examined. An…

In 1981, information on births of Hispanic parentage was available for 22 States. The completeness of reporting of Hispanic origin continued to increase, with somewhat greater improvements measured for origin of the mother than of the father. The fertility rate of the Hispanic population continued to be very high: 97.5 births per 1,000 women, aged…

This paper reviews some of the current research findings on fertility among adolescents which indicate that illegitimacy may be becoming increasingly concentrated in the teenage years, and considers the implications of this phenomenon for mothers, children and society. The relationship of the changing sexual activity of American teenagers, the…

In l970, the Board of Directors at Planned Parenthood at Alameda-San Francisco in California recognized the need for broader sex education programs for young people by giving top priority to community education as well as to clinic services. One of the stated educational objectives became encouraging and assisting school districts to develop…

The scripts of four programs of National Public Radio's Options in Education series are presented. The first program has sequences involving the use of high technology in childbirth. Interviews with doctors and expectant mothers explore the use and availability of electronic monitoring equipment in prenatal care. In the second program, the high…

Findings from a qualitative evaluation of the Coordinated Consumer Health Education Project in rural Eastern Kentucky are presented. The purpose of the project is to provide health education for pregnant and lactating women and their infants up to one year of age through a coordinated effort with other health care providers. The evaluation…

Very common among young people is the attitude that sex should be absolutely spontaneous. Taking precautions in advance of intercourse is cold, calculating and unromantic. Some teenagers regard themselves as invulnerable; only other girls get pregnant. These and other attitudes surrounding teenage pregnancies are explored in this unit, which…

An instrument for naturalistic observation in the childbirth environment is presented. Observable features of the parturient woman's physical state, stimulus contact she experiences, and themes of conversations with the woman are recorded using a system of categories to time-sample in cycles of 30 seconds for observing followed by 30 seconds for…

A comparison of the social structuring of birth and death in modern American society is proposed as a new area of study: cosmic status passage. The author compares the two events as cosmic, universal transformations. The similarities of the experiences are explored in six categories. First, the role of the birthing or dying individual is…

Recent literature on the topic of pregnancy resolution among unmarried adolescent women investigates differences between women choosing abortions and those not so choosing, and is organized into studies dealing with social correlates of pregnancy resolution and research centering on psychological variables. The social correlate studies address…

The Equal Rights Amendment proposes to ensure constitutional protection against all legislative sex discrimination. "Separate but Equal" standards, be they legal, social or psychological, are inevitably incompatable with equal protection under the law and act as a barrier to each individual's freedom for self determination. Equal rights,…

In this study, which investigates the association of parity and maternal attitudes during pregnancy, a 30-item questionnaire was completed by 17 primiparous and 33 multiparous mothers in their 8th month of pregnancy at the Obstetrics-Gynocology Clinic at a university medical center. Measures were obtained on five scales: quality of available…

This study investigates decision-making among women with unplanned and unwanted conceptions. Subjects were females younger than 18 years old, who were unmarried at the time that they became pregnant (N=432). Data were obtained by means of questionnaires given to subjects prior to abortion or delivery. Questions concerned involvements of mother,…