Is Teen Pregnancy a Form of Deviance - Research Paper Example

? Teen Pregnancy: A Form of Deviance1 Teen Pregnancy: A Form of Deviance Teen pregnancy has been a controversy for decades around the world. It becomes a hot topic as critics bombard the issue with their various theories regarding its existence and suggest many varying solutions that can lessen and control the prevalence. It comes along with other societal problems to become deviance from the norms. These deviant issues exist in various degrees that contradict norms in the society. The different problems defined as deviant had always existed in the society as people constantly struggle in their everyday lives. Since change is inevitable, problems also adapt to the evolution happening in the surroundings. No matter how people strive for perfection, there will always be some challenges and problems that will come out. Providing solutions to the societal problems cannot eliminate those problems completely, but those issues can be controlled (Jamrozik and Nocella 1998: 1). Despite of being controlled, there are a number of factors that affect the existence of those kinds of problems. To make the discussion clearer, take teen pregnancy as an example of the societal problems that exist today. The issue of teen pregnancy has caught the attention of people for decades even the popular media had branded it as “Children having Children” (Pillow 2004: 18). That shows how the young people have started exploring their sexuality and engages with the act of sex without knowing anything about pregnancy. Probably education has something to do with that issue as the norms are broken down and the young people tend to explore due to their curiosity (Pillow 2007: 137). Some western nations like United Kingdom and other European countries dealt with the issue of teen pregnancy and sexuality by having sexual openness and sex education. Sex education then is used as an intervention that has various forms and may have different effects on the teen behavior and teen fertility rates. Some forms of sex education may have moderate term effects while others usually have short-term effects. The differences in impact depend upon the nature, methods and effectiveness of the education programs on sexuality. The programs then also have different aims ranging from abstinence to the increase in sexual knowledge, change in sexual behaviors and promotion of contraception for preventing unwanted pregnancies (Arai 2009: 95). The effectiveness then varies from one method of education to another in terms of reducing the cases of teen pregnancy. Some studies have proven that abstinence was able to lower the unwanted case of pregnancy specifically teen pregnancy as the youths learned to postpone sexual engagement. Some experts criticized the effects of abstinence and that only education as the sole solution to the prevailing societal problem was not enough as it was not able to reduce the ignorance of people on sexuality. The youths may not be able to know how sexual diseases are transmitted and how to protect themselves. They may also have no awareness on the mechanics of sex towards pregnancy that leads to inability to protect them from unwanted pregnancy. Also the abstinence only education has some adverse effects on the motivation of the young people to protect themselves from diseases caught from sexual acts (Parke and Stewart 2011: 447). Abstinence-based education actually started in the 1990s and they primarily used fear to drive the motivation of the youths away from any form of sexual contact. They made use of some mottos that depict the following: the dogs are to be pet and not the date and also do the proper thing by waiting for marriage before engaging into sex. That form of education exaggerated the effects of sex as harmful and very risky. In particular, the system endorses sex as an activity that is not for children, and that sex outside of marriage is harmful for the body. In addition, the children formed outside of marriage may experience many difficulties in the society and may not be an effective member of the society (Carroll 2010: 212). Perhaps the rigid and exaggerated endorsements of abstinence had led to undesired behaviors based on the traditional dogma. People felt left out as they are excluded and discriminated by the system which promotes an exclusive way of solving a problem. That gives rise to deviance. It is a form of study about uncertainty regarding the limits of the society. Those involve several kinds of behaviors, actions, identities, attitudes and beliefs that may have gone against the norms. Deviance therefore is subjective that changes its context from one person, culture and society to another of its kind. It is dependent upon the judgment and perception of the actors in the picture. To make the deviance simple, it is rooted from deviation wherein the existence of violations of norms is subjected to penalties or grave consequences. Deviance is usually bombarded with controversies as it does not only involve the society but also politics, culture, tradition and personal viewpoints. Two sides are then shown in the issue of deviance: the relativist and the absolutist. The former involves subjective perception and judgment regarding deviance while the latter counters the relativist through the issue of predetermined rules and norms are unchangeable (Henry 2009: 1). Since deviance is impossible to eradicate completely, the existence of it and the youths who go against the norms proliferate. Take education for example, even if all youths go to school, there are students who still become delinquents despite of their economic capability to go to school. Those delinquents then indulge themselves with crimes and non-violent actions with negative connotations. Since the youths experience the transition towards adulthood, they are subjected to conflicts and anxiety. They experience the tension as the result of generation gap or the youth culture goes the opposite way as the culture of adults approach. The only answer to teen pregnancy that the adults endorse is abstinence in the presence of peer pressure regarding sex explorations (Falk and Falk 2005: 239). Existence of teen pregnancy becomes highest to those who have no access to education and resources. The youths growing in poverty experience the greater deviation. Since they are not well-informed about sex, they are the ones who go into dangerous sexual explorations. To be effective, social and economic structures must be considered to alleviate the condition (Farber 2009: 93). Poverty and lack of education have caused in the rise of teen and unwanted pregnancies, but those are not enough to describe the whole problem of teen pregnancy. As explained in the preceding paragraphs, teen pregnancy is a form of social deviance. Deviance is the diversion from the norms and knowing how social deviance is created would help in solving the societal problems like teen pregnancy. Since deviance is said to be a biased view, therefore it is created based on the perspectives of particular groups of people. Probably those groups make use their own concepts of morality and transform those moral concepts into laws of public decorum. Once those are violated, penalties await the violators. With that, it is clearly shown that deviance creation is a vital portion of a political process that brand people in public as odd and weird plus negative connotations with their actions and they should be persecuted and punished. It can be said that the political process is known as law-making and labeling the violators as deviants as a method of control (Pfuhl and Henry 1993: 85). It has been seen that not only the law makers are the ones responsible for the creation of deviance as movements and network groups also affect the existence of deviance. Those are done by the so-called moral entrepreneurs who dictate the acts as deviant or not. In the process, the ones being harmed are the people who do those weird and socially-unacceptable acts while the real problems are not addressed. The result is an increase in discrimination that may not solve the existing problem in the society (Andersen and Taylor 2008: 168). The same applies for females who experienced teen pregnancy. They may have been discriminated all along. Probably deviant behaviors exist in correlation with self-esteem. As some analyses were done by experts, they found out that people with high self-esteem are less likely to commit deviant behavior as more deviant behaviors are observed to come from people with low self-esteem. Those who commit deviant behaviors like teen pregnancy receive a boost in their self-esteem after doing so. Deviant behaviors exist despite of the danger those may pose or the discrimination that accompany them (Mecca et. al. 1989: 130). Like in teen pregnancy, individuals who step away from the norms have the higher tendency of getting pregnant at a young age for self-esteem boost. Those teenagers may expect to an increase in status as they will receive care, attention and affection from the baby and their partners. Sexual intercourse may be another reason as it signifies the stepping out from childhood towards adulthood (Dibble 2007: 159). Those young people may think of that different behavior as a form of boosting their ego to cope up with their situation, but the cause of teen pregnancy is not limited to that. Also teen pregnancy being a common deviance is the result of other factors such as negative childhood experiences and their unfriendly surroundings. Perhaps in the search for the needs and care from other people, they may choose the nonstandard path of life and experience more stress, problems and unwanted pregnancies. Some even resort to prostitution to solve their educational and biological needs leading to unwanted pregnancies (Thornberry 1997: 199). With the unwanted pregnancies comes the decision of taking abortion as an option. Abortion becomes an option for those who do not fit the traditional image of a mother. The picture of the ideal motherhood lies on having sex within the bounds of marriage and are economically capable to support the child. That depiction of motherhood does not suit everyone in the society as there are those who become pregnant outside of wedlock whether they want it to happen or not. The societal pressure may affect the decision-making of the pregnant mothers as some of them are not included in the concept of motherhood that may later on push them to consider abortion (Hadley 1996: 113). Abortion once proliferate may affect the age structure and population of a given nation. A good example for the adverse effect of abortion towards population is on Canadian society. Majority of the people living in Canada are of older age and fertility rates are lower in that nation. Once abortion becomes more acceptable than it was used to be, there would be less young ages in the age structure of population. Canada may become nonexistent the moment the Canadians do not take actions to prevent the collapse of their population (Baker 1995: 363). Also there are ethical issues regarding abortion as conservatives claim it to be a form of murder or killing which should be penalized (Fleming 2004: 98). Teen pregnancy has become a common deviance as a result of economic and social status in life. Perhaps the lack of access to education also adds to the risk-taking behavior of the youths that lead to dangerous sexual explorations where the common unwanted pregnancies occur. Also in terms of sex education, that form of intervention may help in reducing the teen pregnancy, but having abstinence as a solution alone cannot eradicate the problem. Many factors remain to be unidentified thoroughly as teen pregnancy continues to occur in the society. References Andersen, Margaret and Howard Taylor. Sociology: understanding a diverse society. USA: Thomson Wadsworth. Arai, Lisa. 2009. Teenage Pregnancy: The Making and Unmaking of a Problem. USA: The Policy Press. Baker, Maureen. 1995. Canadian family policies: cross-national comparisons. Canada: University of Toronto Press. Dibble, Tracey. 2007. “Working with under-16s.” Pp. 157-170 in Teenage pregnancy and reproductive health. London: RCOG Press. Carroll, Janell. 2010. Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity. USA: Cengage Learning. Falk, Gerhard and Ursula Falk. 2005. Youth Culture and the Generation Gap. USA: Algora Publishing. Farber, Naomi. 2009. Adolescent Pregnancy: Policy and Prevention Services. USA: Springer. Fleming, Bruce. Sexual ethics: liberal vs. conservative. USA: University Press of America. Hadley, Janet. 1996. Abortion between freedom + necessity. USA: Temple University Press. Henry, Stuart. 2009. Social Deviance. USA: Polity Press. Jamrozik, Adam and Luisa Nocella. 1998. The Sociology of Social Problems: Theoretical Perspectives and Methods of Intervention. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mecca, Andrew, Neil Smelser and John Vasconcellos. 1989. The social importance of self esteem. USA: University of California Press. 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