No to bulging stomachs: Male principals talk about teenage pregnancy at schools in Inanda, Durban

abstract

School principals are expected to manage and support policy which allows for pregnant teenagers to remain at school. This is not always the case, as this study of school principals in the Inanda district of Durban illustrates. The findings revealed objections to pregnancy on moral grounds, drawing from sexual stigma discourses. In some instances the policy was flouted, excluding pregnant teenagers from school through the Learners' Code of Conduct. School principals talked about poor performance and linked it to pregnant teenagers' absenteeism.

Amid the grim realities, the policy context is well known and there are very small signs of changing school management of pregnancy with respect to the policy.

keywords:

• teenage pregnancy
• school principals
• gender
• access and inequality