Girls’ Sex Education and Teenage Pregnancy in Southern Brazil: Abject Bodies?

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study aimed at describing the treatment given by schools, family, and social group to pregnant adolescents and at examining sex education in the family and school environments. Theoretically, we revisited some approaches concerning gender studies. We show quantitative results obtained from a structured questionnaire applied to a sample of pregnant students at a state-owned elementary school in Novo Hamburgo, state of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). The results indicate that 87.5% of the adolescents informed they got pregnant because they were reckless about contraceptive methods, which was confirmed when they answered why they ended up pregnant. This association is statistically significant and we understand that, based on the social group to which these adolescents belong, being a teen mother is natural, as the recklessness associated with protection during sexual intercourse is directly related to their desire to get pregnant, a common, easily accepted, and highly value behavior in the social group in which they are inserted. Most pregnant adolescents who drop out of school are not encouraged by schools or their families to go back to studying; adolescents are abject bodies as they are bodies whose lives are not regarded as “lives” and whose materiality is seen as “unimportant” by schools (Butler, 2015). Adolescents seem to understand that their importance and value just exist when they repeat what is reinforced by their social group: girls get pregnant early on.