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Dissertation Information for Wanda Sue Pillow

NAME:
- Wanda Sue Pillow

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Educational Policy and Leadership

SCHOOL:
- The Ohio State University (USA) (1994)

ADVISORS:
- Patti Lather

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: Policy discourse and teenage pregnancy: The making of mothers

Abstract: This research situates policy theory and analysis as caught in the dilemmas of modernity which raise problematic concerns for policy development, implementation and evaluation. The researcher demonstrates that educational policy theory operates under an assumption of modernist traditions which creates "political absences" and "disembodied spaces." Teenage pregnancy as an educational policy issue is presented as also mired in the same problematics of modernity. Teenage pregnancy policy is explored as a case analysis of an attempt to "rethink" and "unthink" how we do policy and through this process to critically examine how we come to know what we think we know about teen pregnancy as a policy issue.

To aid in this "unthinking" the researcher draws upon feminist, Foucault and postmodern discussions of agency and bodies in an attempt to "embody" policy theory through a discussion of postmodern "fluid" bodies, Foucault "docile" bodies, and feminist "gendered" bodies. A rethinking of teen pregnancy as an policy issue occurs through a consideration of sexism and gender in schools, sex education programs and situates policy responses to teen pregnancy as aiding in the creation of "gendered" pregnancies.

This case study utilizes genealogical inquiry methods influenced by Foucault and Nietzsche to aid in an identification of the discourses which influence the social construction of teen pregnancy. Through genealogical inquiry these discourses are identified at the macro level--through consideration of evaluation data, curriculum and media talk--and then traced through their workings into the micro level of teen girls who are pregnant.

Such inquiry results in a meeting and juxtoposition of macro and micro levels of policy development and theory. Specifically how macro policy discourses surrounding teen pregnancy are negotiated, taken up and resisted by teachers and teen girls is demonstrated. This research encourages a rethinking of policy theory and particularly informs an unthinking of current practices in policy representation.

MPACT Scores for Wanda Sue Pillow

A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-10-25 14:13:41

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