The dominant messaging in many teen pregnancy prevention campaigns is often framed in a stigmatized context of the negative consequences of young motherhood: a young woman’s promising life squandered by the responsibilities of motherhood; teenage girls acting irresponsibly or making “bad choices”; teen mothers and their children becoming societal burdens; and young mothers perpetuating the cycle of troubled family units. Aline Gubrium, Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Policy, and Betsy Krause, Professor of Anthropology, aim to work against these negative stereotypes through their “Hear Our Stories” project. 

While forced family separations by government authorities continue to make headlines and stir debate in the United States, migrant Chinese factory workers in the Italian fast fashion industrial province of Prato have been making the choice to willfully send their newborn children back to China to live with relatives while they remain in Italy. Professor Elizabeth Krause and her colleague Massimo Bressan examine the reasons driving the decision parents are making to separate their families, and how capitalism and the “Made in Italy” label serve as both cause and effect of this choice.

A team of researchers including Laurie Godfrey, Emeritus Professor, and Ventura Pérez, Associate Professor, analyzed the bones of what was once the world’s largest bird and revealed that humans arrived on the tropical island of Madagascar more than 6,000 years earlier than previously thought.