adolescents

Navigating youth, generating adulthood : social becoming in an African context

Medarbetare:	Christiansen, Catrine | Utas, Mats | Vigh, Henrik E.
Utgivare:	Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År:	2006
Ämnesord:	youth, adolescents, children, Social environment, Living conditions, human relations, Social and cultural anthropology, case studies, Africa, Social anthropology/ethnography, Socialantrolopologi/etnografi

This book focuses on the lives and experiences of young people in Africa. On agents who, willingly or unwillingly, see themselves as belonging to the socio-generational category of youth and the ways in which they seek to shape and unfold their lives in a positive manner. Rather than seeing youth as either a social or cultural entity in itself, or as a predefined life-stage, the book argues for an exploration of how youth position themselves and are positioned within generational categories. In studying young people, social scientists must conceptualise youth as both social being and social becoming; a position in movement. It is from the duality of being positioned and seeking one's own socio-generational position that this book engages in the debate on contemporary African youth.

Promoting adolescent sexual and reproductive health in East and Southern Africa

Medarbetare:	Klepp, Knut-Inge | Flisher, Alan J. | Kaaya, Sylvia F.
Utgivare:	Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet; HSRC Press
År:	2008
Ämnesord:	adolescents, Reproductive health, Sexual behavior, Sex education, Health programmes, Health services, aids prevention, Social change, case studies, East africa, Southern Africa, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

In Africa, as in many parts of the world, adolescent reproductive health is a controversial issue for policy makers and programme planners. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to HIV and AIDS and to a host of other problems such as sexually transmitted infection, unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortions, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation and unsafe circumcision. Yet many countries don't have adolescent health policies and much remains to be done to ensure that adolescents can access appropriate sexual and reproductive health services. Articulating new perspectives and strategies to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health, the authors of this volume, comprise a network of researchers working in east and southern Africa. They make a unique attempt to bring together the social and biomedical sciences and to disseminate concrete empirical evidence from existing programmes, carefully analysing what works and what doesn't at the local level. The chapters are built on the premise that sexual and reproductive health behaviour is multifaceted and that interventions must operate on several levels - individual, organisational and governmental - and must reach young people in schools, communities, workplaces, and health-care institutions. Cognisant of recent research and the ethical difficulties facing researchers, the authors provide practical guidance for practitioners and policymakers wishing to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health at the policy and institutional levels and in local communities.

Umleavyo : the dilemma of parenting

Medarbetare:	Ntukula, Mary | Liljeström, Rita
Utgivare:	Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År:	2004
Ämnesord:	Tanzania, parents, gender, generations, children, adolescents, sexuality, initiation, education, marriage, rites and ceremonies, customary law, modernization, child rearing, Sociology, Sociologi

Societies and families are changing all over the world. Less of what the older generations transmit of their experiences can be replicated by the younger generations in their own lives. What we are witnessing is a type of cultural delinking from past generations. Parents despair when their good intentions fail to have an effect and feel overwhelmed by circumstances they cannot control.The Reproductive Health Study Group linked to the University of Dar es Salaam published the first set of studies, Chelewa, Chelewa: The Dilemma of Teenage Girls, in 1994. The focus was on the teenage girl and the various reactions of the adult world to teenage out-of-wedlock pregnancies. The next set of studies, Haraka, Haraka: Look Before you Leap, appeared in 1998 and looked at the erosion of the customs that had regulated marriage, parenthood, and intergenerational obligations.This third and final report, Umleavyo: The Dilemma of Parenting, comprises studies on the generation gap and the ways in which this gap has widened over the past century. In these studies, the past serves as the seemingly stable background on which to project currently fluid and ambiguous parent-child relationships. The main focus of the studies is the different methods of, and goals for, bringing up the next generation. These include physical punishment; achieving compliance through fear and reference to supernatural forces; initiation ceremonies that provide multiple precautions and timely instruction on marriage and procreation; emphasis on relations between people as the most crucial experiences; and encouraging a sense of personal responsibility.The volume is based on the narratives of the grandparents, parents, and youths in the villages of the Pare people in the north and of the initiation leaders in Songea in the south, and on a comparison of the opinions of Nyakyusa elders and youths on gender issues. The central questions raised in the book are: How should one-support youths for whom there is no clear passage to full adulthood? And, how can one forge links between the plight of families and issues of citizenship and public action?