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http://blogs.unicef.org/2015/04/18/are-we-failing-adolescents/
Are We Failing Adolescents? Structural
Determinants & Social Determinants - UNICEF
Fatema,15, sits on the bed at her home in
Khulna, Bangladesh. Fatema was saved from being married a few weeks earlier.
Almost half of all women in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are married before eighteen. Globally, adolescents
are two times more likely to be out of school than primary school aged
children. Nearly eight million 15-24-year-olds in Europe are not
in education, employment or training.
Is it time to ask the question: “Are we failing adolescents?”
The 2012 Lancet Series on adolescent health
highlighted the links between “structural determinants” – national wealth,
inequality and education systems – and adolescent outcomes. At the same time,
growing awareness of the links between social determinants – beliefs, attitudes
and cultural norms – and adolescent wellbeing has not always been accompanied
by sufficient understanding of how or when to intervene.
If we are not intentionally failing adolescents we may well be failing to
look at the issues and vulnerabilities facing them in the right way. Can we
end child marriage simply by increasing the legal age for marriage? Can we
expect to address youth unemployment by encouraging job training?
Adolescence is intensive, often bringing on work, sexual debut, marriage and
parenthood.
Does this interaction sound familiar?
Researcher:
“What is the right age for marriage?”
Mother:
“At age eighteen. That’s the law.”
Researcher:
“When did your own daughter get married?”
Mother:
“I think she was thirteen or fourteen.”
Researcher:
“Why didn’t you allow her to stay in school?”
Mother:
“Then she would never find a husband.”
Newly arrived unaccompanied minors from
South Sudan wait as they undergo registration in Kule camp, Ethiopia. ©
UNICEF/NYHQ2014-1545/Ose
The very notion of adolescence is fuzzy. Is it a function of age, social
convention, puberty? Some cultures may not even recognize it as a distinct life
stage. As a result, public programmes and support services are often weak and
disjointed.
The development community is coming around to the notion that quick fixes
for assuring adolescents’ safe transition to adulthood are elusive. But, there
is a dearth of evidence-based approaches that consider all dimensions. This is
partly because we still have not learned how the different and dynamic elements
in a young person’s life interact. What is needed is a fundamental re-think of
efforts to support adolescent health and well-being based on sound analysis of
how structural realities – school systems, social norms, livelihoods – play
out.
Narrowing the focus on adolescent girls, the new edition of the Innocenti’s Research Watch
debate brings together top experts from Oxford University, the Population
Council and the Lancet Commission, to drill down into the bedrock assumptions
and structures which underpin often inadequate efforts to protect them.
The resulting 20-minute web-video moderated by BBC’s David Eades is a must
see for anyone seeking deeper insight, based on the latest research and
inquiry, into the cultural and structural determinants of adolescent
well-being.
As with all editions of Research Watch, global researchers have contributed written commentaries on critical emerging issues. The latest edition’s commentaries address: the adolescent brain, working with boys to close the gender gap, adolescence and poverty, adolescent girl’s migration, new findings on adolescence from cohort research and much more.