This program seeks to prevent adolescent pregnancy and childbearing through a community-based feminist social service program serving teenage girls. This DAWN program, Discovery and Awareness for Women Now, was initiated as a result of the Women's Movement which has had a serious and positive impact on the lives of most adult women. Yet, teenage…

Unwed pregnancy in young women was conceptualized as a motivated goal interactively determined by both personality and situational factors. The primary behavioral correlate indicative of this predisposition is inadequate use of readily available birth control techniques (B.C.) for the sexually active female. In addition, sex frequency and the…

This paper examines adoption statistics from 1969 through 1975 and suggests that two factors contribute to the decline in the number of children adopted during the 1970s: (1) the increased availability of abortion, and (2) the growing propensity of unwed mothers to keep their children. Changes in the pattern of all adoptions, in the number of…

This study was conducted to test the following notions: (1) blacks are less committed to the norm of legitimacy and; (2) black women have less reason and desire than white women to marry--whether or not they are unmarried mothers. The data are drawn from a questionnaire administered to 704 obstetrical patients, 81 percent of whom were black.…

This survey research assessed the perception of teen mothers relating to their nurturing/parenting role. The research was designed to identify sources that teen mothers feel they can turn to for help and to give teen mothers the opportunity to voice their opinions. Following a review of the literature on the history of nurturing, teen pregnancy,…

This paper presents data from a survey of all 50 states that examined specific programs and policies being pursued at the state level to discourage teenage and nonmarital childbearing. Overall, the teen childbearing rate has continued to fall, and in 1999 it was the lowest on record. Some research points to a relationship between welfare policies…

The unions of unwed parents are referred to as "fragile families" because they are similar to traditional families in many respects, but are more vulnerable. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS) is designed to study such families by following a new birth cohort of approximately 4,700 children, including 3,600 children…

Following a review of basic educational, social, and health constraints faced by single pregnant adolescents and adolescent parents, an urban community's action program directed to this group is described. The organizational structure of the action program is presented as a model for others to explore. (Author)

An experimental program combining pregnant adolescents and nonpregnant girls in group therapy indicated advantages in this approach over group therapy involving only pregnant girls. (Author)

The article discusses the problems of the pregnant school age girl and describes the kinds of programs best suited to improving comprehensive services to these girls and their families. The author stresses the role of school health personnel in helping school systems understand the risks involved. (BY)

While maternity homes are deviant-housing institutions, they differ from institutions that have been typically studied in a number of respects crucial to the inmates' experience. In a variety of ways, maternity homes underwrite moral reprieve and moral reinstatement. (Author/DB)

Summaries of workshops held during annual meeting of the I.A.P.P.W., Detroit, 1970. (CJ)

Expanded version of a paper read at the Pacific Sociological Association Convention, April, 1964.

Utilizing data from young, poor, urban, first-conception Black females, found only weak and partial support for the hypothesis that childbirth illegitimacy runs in families. Difference in maternal histories of any illegitimacy was significant only between females who delivered illegitimately and those who legitimated their conceptions with…