Teenage pregnancy and moral panic in Brazil.
This paper examines teenage pregnancy as a social-historical construction of increasing concern in Brazil. It presents findings from over five years of empirical research alongside an analysis of a sample of newspaper articles representative of the dominant positions in the Brazilian press concerning teenage pregnancy. In contrast to mainstream arguments and to broader moral panic surrounding teenage pregnancy, we argue that contemporary patterns of sexual behaviour among young people in Brazil do not signal growing permissiveness and are not straightforwardly related to poverty, family dysfunction or lack of life projects on the part of young people themselves. On the contrary, early pregnancy and parenthood retain strong continuities with core Brazilian values and norms of sexual culture.
Heilborn
Maria Luiza
ML
Institute of Social Medicine, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. heilborn@ims.uerj.br
Brandão
Elaine Reis
ER
Da Silva Cabral
Cristiane
C
D000293:Adolescent; D001938:Brazil; D003267:Contraception; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D011203:Poverty; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence / Q000208:ethnology*; D012923:Social Class; D012927:Social Control, Informal; D012938:Social Perception; D012945:Social Values; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors