Successful Young Families: Bi-Generational Agency Among School-Aged Parents and Hopes for their Children

• In Event: 2266 - Family Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 4. Family Structure and Education

Abstract

The academic discourse surrounding students who become parents has historically been bleak. Existing scholarship most often characterizes these families as outcomes of poverty, and calls for more preventative initiatives for “at risk” youth. In this paper we take a critical view of widely held academic definitions of risk-factors as identified within people of color from low-income backgrounds, specifically pertaining to early parenthood, and related perceptions that students who become parents lack intelligence and consequential thinking. There is a societal problem in choosing to solely accept that unexpected teenage pregnancy will undoubtedly be detrimental to mobility, absolving the responsibility to provide tailored resources to support these individuals as students. In this paper, using qualitative evidence from a sample of individuals who became school-aged parents, we offer an anti-deficit, anti-delinquency perspective to the larger body of sociology of education which assesses achievement and mobility of young parents. Our findings further challenge existing notions that low-income families value education less than others, or that they are suspicious and resentful of opportunity systems, instead indicating that by becoming a parent one can potentially improve sense-of-self and motivation. We provide insights into how to holistically support these student populations to better foster their agency towards academic and professional goals.

Authors

• Anindya Kundu, NYU

• Colton Elliott, NYU College Student