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International Seminar on Sexual and Reproductive Transitions of Adolescents in Developing Countries

Organised by the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Adolescent Life Course in Developing Countries and the Centre for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies (CEDUA), El Colegio de México
Cholula, Puebla, Mexico, 6-9 November 2006

Call For Papers

Adolescents are a sub-group of the population accounting for over one billion young people who make up over one-fifth of the world’s population. In the span of only a few years during their second decade of life, the average young person makes several important life transitions. The youth of today are reaching adulthood in a very different world than the one in which their parents lived when they were adolescents. Although the pace of change varies in different regions of the world, all societies are experiencing modifications and many are going through rapid and extreme transformations due to the new possibilities opened up by social, economic and political change as well as by modern technology and new communication systems, which expose young people to different values and ways of thinking. Economic cycles of growth and decline (“boom and bust”) now operate in a global economy and can improve employment opportunities for young people or, conversely, increase the difficulty of competing for work, income and education. Although there have been important scientific advances in controlling certain diseases, new ones have also emerged, leading to increased health risks for youth, and in the case of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, also increasing young people’s risk of dying.

This seminar will focus on the sexual and reproductive transitions of adolescents in developing countries and will build on a 2005 NAS report that provides a comprehensive assessment of evidence on this subject. Research on adolescents is important because this is a crucial period of life with regard to learning and skill building on the one hand and risk-taking on the other hand and because successful growth and transitions during these years will set the stage for life-long health, social and economic success, and psychological well-being. For example, the trend towards a later age at marriage leads to a lengthening of the transitional period between puberty and marriage, and combined with global social and cultural changes, has resulted in an increase in the percent of adolescents engaging in sex prior to marriage, with the attendant risks associated with multiple sexual partners. In some societies, this change in the order of transitions has been accepted and policy and programs have adapted and responded appropriately to help young people protect their sexual health; in others, conflicts of values have emerged and affect societal responses to the changing context of sexual initiation. On the one hand, the timely and adequate knowledge of, and access to, contraception can help prevent an unwanted pregnancy and allow young people to continue their schooling. On the other hand, having or fathering a child during adolescence may cause the adolescent to stop his/her schooling and to seek work. Early marriage has traditionally been linked to early motherhood; with global change bringing new demands on youth in terms of skills and education, for both men and women, it is important to understand whether and how the timing of sexual initiation, first marriage and first birth are changing, and the implications of these changes for transitions to adulthood.

Adolescents are experiencing gaps between their sexual and reproductive behaviours and the adoption of safe sexual practices to avoid unwanted pregnancies and STDs/HIV infections, with important variations between the married and unmarried, across countries and among subgroups within countries. The high levels of unwanted adolescent pregnancy, maternal morbidity and mortality, unsafe abortion, and the growing incidence of STIs and HIV/AIDS reveal that adolescents and young people are highly vulnerable in the area of sexual and reproductive health. Recent reviews show that sex education and provision of health and family planning services are deficient in most developing countries and that adolescent reproductive health and well-being must be improved. Further research is needed to better understand the sexual and reproductive life course of young people, how it intersects with other transitions to adulthood, including citizenship, schooling and work.

The goal of the seminar is to bring to bear scientific evidence on policy and practice to improve the reproductive health and well-being of adolescents. It is important that submitted scientific papers draw out the implications of research findings for policy and practice. The identification of specific implications, suggestions and feasible proposal for new or modified policies and actions would be particularly valuable. For example, research that addresses the specific connections between school dropout, pregnancy, preferences regarding timing of motherhood, motivation of adolescent girls to continue studying, and the requirements in particular settings (which may vary according to age and grade, for example) regarding whether pregnant girls may continue attending school or return to school can lead to specific practical and feasible recommendations on how to improve school completion among adolescent women who become pregnant or who have a child. Participants are encouraged to consider not one transition but the complexity of multiple pathways to adulthood and factors influencing these and their interrelationships.

Research on adolescent reproductive health remains very limited in a number of important areas. Viewing sexual and reproductive health from a “dynamic perspective embedded in the life course of the individuals in their passage from adolescence to adulthood”, scholars working on this subject will participate in the seminar with the goal of advancing research on this area through papers presented and in-depth discussion.

Themes we would like to cover in this seminar include:

Transitions
• New work identifying trends in key transitions to adulthood
• New forms of transitions associated with sexual and reproductive health
• Interrelationships between sexual and reproductive transitions and transitions in other areas of adolescents’ lives (including education and work)
• New methodologies for addressing the study of transitions to adulthood

Determinants
• Determinants of adolescent pregnancy in different social contexts
• Sexual practices and determinants of sexually transmitted diseases
• New methodologies for addressing transitions to adulthood and their interrelationships

Consequences
• Consequences of adolescent pregnancy for the individual, the family and community in regard to health, social and economic well-being, in the near term and in the long term
• Differences in consequences depending on the adolescent’s circumstances, e.g. whether the adolescent is married or in a stable relationship (when the support of the partner and family will likely be available), compared to short-term relationships.
• Abortion among young people in different contexts
• The pregnant adolescent: consequences for educational and employment opportunities

Gender
• Differences between men and women in relation to sexual practices and values of sexuality
• Differences between men and women in relation to motherhood/fatherhood in adolescence and responses to unwanted pregnancies
• Differences between men and women regarding their perceptions of future achievements (education, work, etc.) and successful transitions achieved after adolescent motherhood/fatherhood.

Services
• Interventions (sexual education programmes, other public programmes, aspects related to the community, mass media messages, etc.) that could improve sexual and reproductive health
• The role of health institutions and service providers in the reproductive health of adolescents
• New forms of service strategies to support young people with regard to making improvements in their reproductive health and transitions to adulthood (community, peer-led programmes, life skills programmes, etc.)

Papers may be country-specific or comparative. Although the focus of the seminar is on developing countries, papers on developed countries or on comparisons of developed and developing countries will be considered if they illustrate important methodologies and/or serve to improve knowledge on sexual and reproductive health transitions to adulthood in the developing world. Preference will be given to innovative papers and to studies that discuss implications for policy, practice and program in some detail.

This International Seminar will bring together demographers, sociologists, anthropologists, economists, as well as scholars from the other related disciplines interested to exchange the latest scientific knowledge on sexual and reproductive health transitions to adulthood.

The IUSSP Scientific Panel on Adolescent Life Course in Developing Countries invites researchers in the field to submit online a detailed 500 word abstract, an extended abstract or full paper which must be unpublished, and personal information by 15 May 2006.

Deadline for abstract and curriculum vitae: 15 May 2006.

Applicants will be notified whether their paper has been accepted by 30 June 2006. In the case of acceptance on the basis of an abstract, the completed paper must be uploaded on the IUSSP website by 30 September 2006.
The seminar will be limited to a maximum of 20 contributed papers. Proceedings or an edited volume will be produced after the seminar.

The organisers will pay for expenses at the meeting location for all participants, but funding for travel is very limited. Applicants are encouraged to seek their own travel funding, but if they require travel assistance, they should indicate that need by ticking the appropriate box on the on-line submission form when submitting paper or abstract. Applicants will be informed of the status of their application for financial support before 31 August 2006. For further information, please contact Fatima Juarez (fjuarez@colmex.mx and fjuarez2@prodigy.net.mx) [please send to both emails] with a copy to Susheela Singh (ssingh@guttmacher.org).