Social Studies Sba

School Based Assessment

Subject: Social Studies
School: Willowdene High School
Candidate #:
Centre:
Territory:
Teacher: Mrs. Mitchelle
Year: 2012
Title:

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE
Acknowledgements (1)
Introduction (2)
Statement of the problem (3)
Research question * What are the causes of teenage pregnancy? (3) * How does the problem impact the lives of the teenagers? (4) * What can be done to correct this problem? (5)
Reason for selecting area (6)
Method of Investigation (6)
Instrument used to collect Data (7-11)
Procedures used to collect Data (12)
Presentations and Explanation of Data
Interpretation of Data
Findings
Recommendations

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION
Greater Portmore is a large community in the parish of St. Catherine, which is located in the county of middle sex, Jamaica. One of the sectors of Greater Portmore called Sabina Park is where I interviewed some of the teenage mothers living in the area. For the past sixteen years I have been a resident of Sabina Park. During my time here I have discovered that a number of teenage girls who were suppose to be at a secondary level are not attending school and this disturbs me a lot. I have notice the lack of father figures in most of the teenage mother’s houses in my community, this is so because the fathers refuse to take responsibilities for their children which resulted into single mothering where the child has to grow without his/her father.
I have also observed a standard of low living where teenage mothers were not able to go back to school because of the post-natal care of their children and how their pregnancy affected them educationally. This caused them to be unemployed and nondependent.
I have therefore decided to perform a survey to examine the cause, effect and solution of teenage pregnancy in Sabina Park, Greater Portmore.

Task 1 Statement of the problem
How does teenage pregnancy contribute problems to themselves and there babies?
Research questions 1. What are the causes of teenage pregnancy? (cause)
Obviously the cause for pregnancy is no use or the misuse of protection. Children under the age of 18 should abstain. So why do teenagers have sex? Why don’t they use protection?
Most pregnant teenagers were pressured into having sex. They were so young and naive they thought, and even believed, that they loved so much that they couldn’t say no to the male and would do anything to please him.
Boys would tell the girls what they wanted to hear. They would use flattery and vain promises to lure her.
If a guy is handsome, looks neat, have a lot of cash and even say the words, “I love you” on the first date, would drive some girls crazy turning a million “no’s” into one yes! Most times this would disillusion them from seeing that they were being used.
When the males are forcing a girl to do something they do not do it aggressively, they take the time to study her, find out her weakness, and aim.
In a number of cases, they did not intend to get the girl pregnant. They just wanted to urgently get what they came for in the relationship. Hence, the non –use or misuse of protection.
Some girls are otherwise forced into early sexual activities, resulting in teenage pregnancies, either by choice or by “design”. Some, due to inadequacy of basic financing, either choose to or are forced by parents to do so.

2. How does the problem impact the lives of the teenagers? (effect)

Due to the fact that teenage pregnancy occurred at the Secondary Education stage of life, their lives are affected in numerous ways. Teenage mothers are more likely to become depressed than adult mothers because they have to be worrying about financial needs, limitations, commitments, overall the period of post-natal care.

Teen pregnancy can result in a young girl’s education being put on hold indefinitely. Teenage mothers often drop out of school before they had an opportunity to develop meaningful life skills, a higher level of education and achieving goals. Teenage pregnancy creates a financial burden for the teenagers because they are too young to obtain a job making an adequate salary to support a family especially because they aren’t experienced and they are under educated. However, because of this they do depend on their parents for financial support.

Teenagers do not want to be taking care of a family at such an early age; they do not want to be lack of restrictions they don’t want any responsibilities because they love their freedoms. Most teenage got to go out and enjoy their selves on the weekends; they can’t just sit around and take care of a child when they want to go to parties, movies and even school. They aren’t yet ready to be in a committed long-relationship; therefore they are more single teenage parents in the society. This now leaves one party with the obligation of raising the child on their own. However, as I said before, the parents will be maintaining their child and grandchild financially.

Taking care of a child is a lot of responsibility for one human being, causing less freedom. Teenage mothers often experience social exclusion; they are not able to carry out their usual daily activities, as well as the relationship between both their parents and peers being more distant. Since they are now mothers they have to be spending a lot of time with their babies so they aren’t able to go out with friends but only to do shopping for their child. However, some of the teenagers even though they are mothers still do their normal activities because they are not yet matured or responsible to take care of their child so they would leave them on guardians or friends.

3. What can be done to correct this problem? (Solutions)

This issue of teenage pregnancy has been around for a very long time, but is not an acceptable occurrence in most, if not all societies. Because of that, several studies have been done and attempts made to correct, or at least to significantly reduce the problem. Most teenagers are led to sexual activities because of various reasons such as lack of communication with parents, not enough sex education in schools, peer pressure and a lack of responsibility to use protection.

An Interaction with a parent plays a big part in a child’s life growing up. Each Parent should have a bond between them and their child where they can have a discussion about the preparation for the outside world including sexual relations. Sex education should also be taught in the homes as much as the other subjects in school. This will make the child more comfortable to know that they can talk to their parents, they are being listened to while being taught at the same time and understanding more about sex education.

Teenage pregnancy can be prevented by more availability of sexual education among students in institutions in our society; therefore giving the children more information about the risk of getting pregnant at an early age so that they would at least take it into consideration. Not every child is aware of sex education so most likely it will change someone lives, one more child will have the opportunity to enter the world of work and even if it is one person who gets the message it will make a difference in their lives and our society.

Teenagers are most likely to be pressured by their peers because they are afraid that if they don’t go along with the most popular actions they wouldn’t be classified as a norm. If teenagers would have a mind of their own, stop following bad company and have a higher self esteem they will not be in a situation where they have to be taking care of a child at an early age. Teens should be thinking more wisely as they mature day by day; therefore they would be conscious of where they are heading and block out obstacles in there way like teenage pregnancy.

Lack of Protection is the cause of pregnancy but for teenage pregnancy it should not be so. Teenagers should not be having sex so early because their body isn’t fully matured and so they are not ready physically or mentally. The age of consent, strangely is now sixteen (16) so teenagers sixteen and over should become more responsible to use protection because they are now matured enough to know the dangers of life. However, I still do consider that the best way to prevent teenage pregnancy is to abstain because it makes sense. It will make the future better.

Task 2 Reason for selecting area of research
This area of research was selected because of seeing people all around who have been through this situation. It is very disturbing to see women suffering and struggling mentally, physically and educationally because of teenage pregnancy. This is also a recommendation to resolve the problem of teenage pregnancy, making a difference in the society. Task 3

Method of investigation
I used an interview to collect the data for my research
The method used for investigation has a number of advantages: * It goes into further details than the questionnaire making the interviewer understand their research much better. * It is also useful to obtain detailed information about personal feelings, perceptions and opinions. * Respondents could be lack of reading skills so an interview would be more valuable than a questionnaire.

Task 4
Instrument used to collect data
Teenage pregnancy Interview Age you got pregnant: 13-15 16-19 Are you a single parent?

Were you forced in to having sex, resulting in pregnancy?

What was your reaction when you found out you were pregnant?

Did you grow up in an environment/home where teenage pregnancy occurred before? If so, how did you relate to it?

Were you and your partner thinking about having a family after finding out your pregnancy? Why

Did you think of having an abortion? Why

Were you afraid of how people would react to your pregnancy?

Were you familiar with sex education?

Was your baby healthy after birth?

Did you contract any STD’s? If yes, did it affect your child in any way?

Did it affect you knowing that you had to be taking care of a child at an early age?

What were your parents/guardians reaction when they found out you were pregnant?

Did you get any support with the baby from your family?

What was your partner’s reaction when he found out that you were pregnant?

Were your parents/guardians aware that you were seeing your partner?

Did he take any form of responsibility for his child after birth?

What were your decisions to proceed in life after your pregnancy?

Did you drop out of school as a result of your pregnancy?

Have you been able to continue any educational studies? If yes, how long after your pregnancy

What main factor do you think would have helped you to avoid getting pregnant so young?

Task 5

Procedures used to collect Data

Sabina Park has approximately 130 houses. It was calculated that a sample of 10% was necessary in order to ensure correct termination of teenage pregnancy. (10% of 130=13)
A total of 15 interviews were prepared for selected teenage mothers in the community. Therefore, I went around the neighborhood in searching of citizens who were available. There were a number of mothers who were not in attendance which resulted in the sum of 10 persons included in the discussion.

Task 6
Presentation and examination of Data A total of 10 teenage mothers were interviewed succesfully.Of theses respondents, all were females in which 90% got pregnant at the age 16 and 10% got pregnant at age 19.

Fig.1: Pie chart showing the current status of selected teenage mothers
Most of the residents (80%) are single mothers because their partners denied to accept the child as their own, refused to take responsibility and also refused to be a part of the child’s family.20% of teenage mothers are not single because one of the fathers were at a matured age and decided to be a part of their child’s life and the other mother is now married.

Fig 2: Pie-chart showing the period of time it took the mothers to return to school to further their education.
According to the chart, 30% of women went back school couple months after their pregnancy. Most of the citizens (40%) took 1 year to go back to school in which 10% of the 40% went back to secondary level and the rest (30%) went on to a territory level. 10% went back to school very late(over 10 years) because of financial problems at the time. However, 20% did not return to further their education because they could not afford financially which led to unemployment.

Fig 3.Bar showing the main factors teenage mothers thought would have avoided their pregnancy
The factor that got the most percentage was more interaction with parents.50% of teenage mothers did not have a good relationship with their parents causing them to search for love and neediness somewhere else; they got involved in sexual activities which led to pregnancy. The factor that got the least percentage (10%) was better responsibility to have used protection. This was selected because the mother was matured enough to have sex, was not pressured so she should have been more responsible. 40% of mothers would have avoided teenage pregnancy if it was not for peer pressure.

Fig 4.Showing if the mothers believed in abortion In figure 4 50% of mothers do not believe in abortion because they could not live with their self with the fact that they killed something which was growing inside of them. Also 50% do believe in abortion because they had financial problems, because of the reaction of their parents they felt ashamed and also they thought that having the baby would have been a very risky thing to do. However, they kept the child.

Task 7
Analysis and interpretation of data

Task 9