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ERIC Number: EJ793839
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 8
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1068-3844
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Keepin' It Real and Relevant: Providing a Culturally Responsive Education to Pregnant and Parenting Teens
Roxas, Kevin
Multicultural Education, v15 n3 p2-9 Spr 2008
Although teen pregnancy and birth rates in the United States declined for ten straight years during the 1990s and were less than half of comparative figures from 1957, the year of the all-time high of teen pregnancy, nearly one in ten teenage young women still became pregnant in 2001, with half of these young women giving birth. Teen pregnancy statistics are particularly high for minority youth in poor and working class urban areas. Twenty-five percent of teen births occur to African-American teens, and twenty-eight percent occur to Latina teens, despite the fact that African Americans and Latinas each account for only fifteen percent of the total teenage population. While the largest overall percentage of births occurs to Caucasian young women, race and class further complicate the study of pregnant and parenting teens. Indeed, unlike White middle-class women who become teen mothers, Black pregnant and parenting teens are far more likely to face disapproval by the general public and experience poverty in their lives and the lives of their children. Young Black women who reside in geographic pockets of poverty in urban areas also have higher than average pregnancy rates. The perennial problems faced by young Black women who are either pregnant or parenting and who have been disadvantaged in public schools is a troubling phenomenon that merits further attention. This article will provide an overview of societal and school obstacles that African-American pregnant and parenting teens face, and discuss one particular school's innovative response to these teens. By examining how the Rosa Parks Academy and its teachers are employing culturally responsive pedagogy in their work with their students, it is hoped that educators in urban schools elsewhere can begin to consider new and alternative ways of thinking about the education of African-American pregnant and parenting teens, a segment of the overall student population that is currently underserved and disadvantaged in public schools in the U.S. (Contains 1 table and 3 notes.)
Caddo Gap Press. 3145 Geary Blvd, PMB 275, San Francisco, CA 94118. Tel: 415-666-3012; Fax: 415-666-3552; e-mail: caddogap@aol.com; Web site: http://www.caddogap.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Practitioners
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A