Dubious Conceptions: The Politics of Teenage Pregnancy

By Kristin Luker

Book Overview

As her little boy plays at a day care centre across the street, Michelle, an unmarried teenager, is in algebra class, hoping to be the first member of her family to graduate from high school. Will motherhood make this young woman poorer? Will it make the United States poorer as a nation? That's what the voices raised against babies having babies would have us think, and what many Americans seem inclined to believe. This book takes us behind the stereotypes, the rhetoric, and the media sound bites to show us the complex reality and truths of teenage mothers in America today.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674217020
• ISBN13: 9780674217027
• Release Date: May 1996
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Great book

This book is a very insightful look at "teen" pregnancies and may help destroy many ideas that people have of the "fast" "immature" teen girl pregnant because of her hormonal drive and rebelliousness.

Start understanding what's really going on..

If you're public health professional, a teacher, a social worker, or even a politician, dealing with teen pregnancy at any level, you don't really understand what's going on, unless you've walked the walk, or read Kristin Luker's Dubious Conceptions, Judith Musick's Young, Poor and Pregnant, or Norine Johnson et al's (Eds.) Beyond Appearance: A New Look at Adolescent Girls. If you haven't been in their (adolescent mothers') shoes, but you have the social conscience and sense of social justice to want to help these kids, these three works are, in my view, indispensible reading. If you depend on organizations like The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy for your good ideas, you have really been missing the boat. Come down to earth and discover their real world.

Best book about what we call "teen pregnancy"

Along with Judith Musick's "Young, Poor, and Pregnant," Luker's book is a masterpiece shattering beloved myths on all sides of the utterly phony "teen pregnancy" squabble.