International
Handbook of
Adolescent Pregnancy

This volume is a result of the certainty that we can learn from each
other. Especially, there is a great deal to be learned by studying the way
people from different cultures and from different countries respond to a
socially defined individual behavior, such as adolescent pregnancy. This
volume provides a multitude of views on adolescent pregnancy that can
help our thinking move from the oversimplified constructs based on our
own cultural perspective to a construct that is built upon a foundation
of biological science (e.g., a knowledge of child development, and sexual
and reproductive development), issues common to all adolescents,
particularly girls. These differences between the way people from various
countries respond to adolescent pregnancy, as will be observed in these
chapters, is the result of religious and cultural beliefs specific to
individual groups and individual countries.