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Luttrell, Wendy. (2003). Pregnant Bodies, Fertile Minds:
Gender, Race, and the Schooling of Pregnant Teens. New York:
Routledge
Pp. xviii + 238
$23.95 ISBN 0-415-93189-4
Reviewed by Donna Adair Breault
Illinois State University
January 25, 2004
Ethnography, Heuristics, and the Exploration of
Power and Possibility:
A Review of Luttrell’s Pregnant Bodies,
Fertile Minds
It is always exciting to find a book that stands
out as an exemplar within its field – whether that field is
research methodology, feminist theory, critical theory, or the
like. When, however, you find a book that achieves this
distinction within multiple contexts – one that offers
vital images and challenges to multiple audiences, you realize
you have an incredible resource that you will want to share with
others. Luttrell’s Pregnant Bodies, Fertile Minds,
is such a book.
Confessions
Upon first glance at this book, I must admit that
my reaction was something to the effect, “O.K., it looks
like it will be interesting, but hardly relevant to what I do as
a curriculum professor and teacher educator.” Needless to
say, perhaps, I stand corrected. Within the first few pages I
was intrigued by the story of these young women – girls who
were participating in the Piedmont Program for Pregnant Teens
(PPPT). I was also surprised by the manner in which I was able
to experience their worlds – an honest examination where
Luttrell offers their experiences and their self-representations
in such a way that she is able to defer to their voices even
though she was an active part of their education during the five
years in which she engaged in this person-centered
ethnography.
Artistic Balance
According to Luttrell, the book is written in such
as way as to “consider what we can learn from a single
school program in a particular time and place, about the layers
of social and psychological factors at work in the education
and/or miseducation or pregnant teenagers” (p. xvii). I
believe she accomplishes this in powerful ways – mindfully
negotiating their voices with her own responses, thoughtfully
reflecting upon the theory that informs her analysis, and
honestly dealing with the challenges of ethnographic
inquiry.
Because of her thoughtful negotiations, I believe Luttrell
escapes a common pitfall. She does not over-theorize. She
introduces theoretical notions that bring more fullness and
clarity to the experiences without using the girls’
experiences as a platform to proselytize about gender and race.
The experiences speak for themselves in many instances, and as
such, they would inform both undergraduate and graduate students
as well as practicing teachers and administrators in more
powerful ways than some books on race and gender that focus more
on the theory itself. While abstraction and theory play vital
roles in academia, when rooted first and foremost in experience
as Luttrell has done, they become truly educative. As Dewey
(1980) notes,
Tangled scenes of life are made more intelligible in esthetic
experience; not, however, as reflection and science render things
more intelligible by reduction to conceptual form, but by
presenting their meanings as the matter of clarified, coherent
and intensified or “impassioned” experience. (p. 290)
Thus, Luttrell achieves a level of artistry within her
inquiry. She becomes more than merely a “curator” or
the girls’ representations (p. xvii). She also becomes a
curator to a number of very important ideas from which the reader
may reflect. This is not to say that the books that do make
stronger statements about race and gender are not of equal value
– they merely serve a different purpose. Luttrell
recognizes this in her own introduction, and throughout the book
she remains true to the parameters of her original goals.
Luttrell divides her book into three parts. In the first, she
offers the context in which she did her study. In addition to a
brief mention of the methods she used, Luttrell describes the
physical and historical context of the PPPT Program. She
describes the Piedmont area of North Carolina from which the
students in the PPPT Program come as well as a thorough
description of the PPPT Program and how it has changed over time.
Again, Luttrell demonstrates astute balance between the history
of policies regarding the education of pregnant teens in general
and the PPPT Program itself, all the while weaving the voices of
her subjects within her description and analysis. In the latter
part of the first section, Luttrell moves away from the
girls’ voices in order to address larger social concerns as
a vital part of the context of her work. Again, in doing so she
maintains a more authentic sense of representation of the
girls’ stories overall by not making them explicit
“poster children” for issues of class, race, and
gender. I believe this balance between theory and the
ethnographic substance of her work is vital and one of the
reasons she is so successful in this book.
In the second part of the book, Luttrell examines
the girls’ representations of themselves. She offers these
representations in the forms of self-portraits, personal
collages, and role-playing of “pregnancy stories.”
According to Luttrell, she hoped to “convey something about
selfhood, identity, and agency that many other books about poor
and working-class pregnant teenagers have not” (p. xvii).
Again, she succeeds because her focus is the stories and
experiences of the girls as they are manifested within their
representations. Her analysis of those representations and the
theories that add depth to the analysis are secondary –
allowing the reader to see and experience the worlds of the PPPT
girls first.
In Part III of her book, Luttrell addresses the
theoretical and methodological implications of her work. She
deals very honestly with the challenge of personal ethnography
– of being part of the experience while simultaneously
trying to represent it in an authentic manner. This makes her
book all the more valuable as a resource for individuals studying
ethnographic methodology as well as those involved in sex
education for teens. She shows how her multiple methods of
inquiry offered insights beyond current research on adolescent
sexuality. As she notes, previous work about teen sex dealt more
with deviance than desire. Her work, in contrast, demonstrates
that teen sex is more than an issue of timing. It involves
beliefs and assumptions about sex as well as relations of power.
Relating this to the implications for sex education curriculum,
Luttrell contends the following:
Developmentally speaking, rather than focusing on the
“whole person” and how sexual feelings and actions
get incorporated into adolescent identities an relationships, sex
education is highly fragmented, often focusing solely on
health-related behaviors and risks. (p. 141)
Beyond Balance: Inquiry and Connoisseurship
With the three parts of Luttrell’s book in mind, I think
it is fair to assess its effectiveness according to the three
dilemmas she identifies from Ruth Behar and Deborah
Gordon’s (1995) work regarding ethnography. First, does
Luttrell effectively claim knowledge about the subject of
pregnant teens? I believe she does, in fact, demonstrate a
sense of authority regarding the subject by virtue of her
attention to so many elements surrounding the education of
pregnant teens – considering history, policy, and general
social sentiment. Further, she considers the tension between
education as a right as represented through public policy
and education as a responsibility as manifested through
curriculum set up for pregnant teens. With the breadth and
degree of analysis that Luttrell offers regarding the education
of pregnant teens, she establishes the context as problematic
rather than merely positing the context as fact. Thus, readers
are able to explore the implications and challenges posed by the
context rather than accepting it as given.
Second, does Luttrell represent the pregnant girls’
culture without reducing its complexity and variability? In
the same manner that the author does not present the girls of the
PPPT Program as poster children for issues of race and gender,
she also does not “use” them as mere social phenomena
within a social critique of the education of pregnant teens.
Luttrell moves beyond what we know from statistics and social
theory and presents their stories in their own voices. In this
way, the reader can experience the pride and tenacity as well as
the confusion and insecurities of the young women. By letting
each student speak for herself, Luttrell creates space within
which readers can confront their own assumptions about pregnant
teens.
Thus, I believe Luttrell has used ethnographic inquiry to
achieve what other forms of inquiry often do not: representation
of the complexity of her subjects. By providing multiple forms
of representation - how the girls now see themselves, how they
would like to see themselves, and how they experience their daily
worlds - readers are able to see beyond typical stereotypes of
pregnant teens. I believe this realization is the first crucial
step in rethinking policies and curricula for not only pregnant
teens but also for all students who are marginalized within our
everyday school experiences.
Finally, to what degree does Luttrell effectively discern
between the voices and experiences of the subjects and her
own? To judge this, it helps to first consider a critical
element of ethnography presented by Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis
(1997): the researcher does not come to his or her work with a
blank slate. Therefore, it is essential that the researcher
needs to be aware of her own context and the assumptions and
expectations that come into play within the inquiry. They further
contend that without such awareness, the researcher will not be
open to possible surprises, inconsistencies, and affirmations.
When a researcher can recognize the intersections of her own
personal context with the context of the research and is further
able to articulate those intersections, she then becomes part of
the research. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) go on to point
out that it is essential that the researcher balance her personal
context with that of the researched. They note, “Like all
elements of context, personal context warrants inclusion only
insofar as it illuminates the subject of the portrait. (p.
69).”
I believe there are moments of awareness of self in relation
to the subject in the work of some researchers – points
where these intersections becomes poignant in their analysis of
data. I believe there is also a risk for some researchers, as
Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis warn, to become so engrossed in
their own personal contexts that the experiences of the subjects
become overshadowed. When, however, a researcher can maintain a
heightened sense of this awareness throughout her work and
balance it with the lived experiences of her subjects, I believe
she achieves what Eisner (1991) calls
“connoisseurship.” According to Eisner,
connoisseurship requires a sense of “epistemic seeing (p.
68),” a thoughtful negotiation of the particular and how
the particular fits within a larger framework. Because Luttrell
began this project with a solid grounding in feminist theory as
well as a broad understanding of the social and curricular
implications of education of pregnant teens and because she was
able to develop an authentic relationship with her subjects, she
demonstrates this epistemic seeing in her analysis. She
recognizes the challenge of representing the lives and
experiences of marginalized subjects – particularly from
her own position of privilege. As a result, her honest portrayal
of that struggle can help other white, middle class academics to
explore the implications of whiteness within their own work.
Ethnography as a Heuristic Device
Whatever we learn, we learn from experience (Dewey, 1929;
1997; 1998). What Dewey (1990) said of children is equally
applicable to academics, “Nothing can be developed out of
nothing; nothing but the crude can be developed out of the crude
– and this is what surely happens when we throw the child
back upon his self as a finality, and invite him to spin new
truths of nature and conduct out of that” (p. 196). While
we often find ourselves quite comfortable in the world of theory
and abstraction, without grounding in the real experiences of
others, we run the risk of losing the public-ness of our
intellectualism.
We may be intellectually good, but can we as Dewey (1944)
admonishes, be good for something? Can our intellectual
endeavors esteem something greater than our own personal
intellectual achievement? When I ponder this academic conundrum,
I cannot help but recall my own past experiences as a teacher in
an inner-city setting. I remember going to hear bell hooks
(1996) read exerts from her then new book, Killing Rage.
I remember the impact her words had on me – the experiences
of unfathomable racism she encountered that sparked her writing
of the book. For the first time, I think I really realized how I
could never completely understand what it meant to a person of
color in the world. All of the theoretical texts I had read in
my doctoral program could not impress upon me the daily realities
of my privilege and the implications of the absence of such
privilege. While I could write about hegemony and
marginalization, particularly if my audience was fellow academics
of privilege, I could never fully grasp the depth of the
implications of power and privilege for those marginalized
individuals I had intellectualized.
The following week, one of my students was falsely accused of
possessing drugs – stopped in the hall by another white
teacher. The rage I saw within his response became clearer
because of the experiences hooks had conveyed the week before.
All I could do in response was to try to convey, however
inarticulately, my newfound sense of humility – to admit to
my student that I could never truly understand the depth of rage
he felt at that time.
I believe Luttrell offers images within her work
that are as equally as powerful as those offered by bell hooks
during that night I heard her read from Killing Rage. She
achieves a vital relationship with her subjects that accounts for
the depth and authenticity of her inquiry (Lincoln & Guba,
1985). She and the young women in the PPPT program develop a
sense of mutual vulnerability (Adair Breault, 2003) over
time. I believe it is the same kind of mutual vulnerability that
Freire (1998) describes as a prerequisite for critical educators,
and it is an essential element for such personal ethnography:
One of the most important tasks of critical educational
practice is to make possible the conditions in which learners, in
their interaction with one another and with their teachers,
engage in the experience of assuming themselves as social,
historical, thinking, communicating, transformative, creative
persons; dreamers of possible utopias, capable of being angry
because of a capacity to love. (p. 45)
Perhaps this is why two years following the study, as
indicated in the Epilogue, Luttrell was introduced by one of
subjects as “her teacher.”
Luttrell’s Audience
I believe a number of audiences could benefit from
reading Luttrell’s book. It is an excellent resource for
an ethnography course where students can see the method as it is
enacted. By reading Pregnant Bodies, Fertile Minds,
ethnography students could more fully recognize the complexity of
the researcher as the primary instrument of inquiry. Further,
they could witness the exciting challenge of “activist
ethnography” as Luttrell presents it - work that changes
the way the researchers and the researched see them selves and
how they are seen by others (p. 147).
I also believe the book would be a valuable resource in a
number of graduate and undergraduate teacher education courses.
As I indicated earlier, I believe the book introduces issues and
theory regarding race, gender, and power in ways within which
students can more clearly identify because it is grounded in the
experiences of the PPPT girls. I think grounding the issues of
gender, race, and power in schools directly within an ethnography
offers an experiential base from which students could further
abstract and explore ramifications in their current and future
work as teachers.
I also believe current and future administrators would benefit
from reading this book. As a former administrator, I remember
that much of the representation of the marginalized students of
my former school came in the form of unpleasant office visits
resulting from teacher referrals. While my own interests,
background, and education helped to prepare me to see beyond
stereotypes and look for the complexity of the individuals I
encountered, I know that, unfortunately, not every administrator
has such a background or a disposition. An ethnography that
offers such a poignant representation of the complexity of the
lives of these girls would help current and future administrators
to look beyond the surface of their daily experiences to see the
complexity of their students as well as the systemic elements
that objectify those students and perpetuate the cycles of
injustice.
Finally, while it may be considered “cheating,” I
believe everyone else – whether a parent or not –
could benefit from reading this book. Ironically, I discovered I
was pregnant while reading Luttrell’s book. As I
experienced the first doctor’s visit, the images from
Luttrell’s book that portrayed the students’ own
experiences within the clinics haunted me. As a mature,
professional, white woman, I have the luxury of comprehensive and
compassionate care from nurses and my doctor. In addition, all
those hearing the news have responded with smiles and
congratulatory comments. Throughout these early months, I
continue to reflect on how very different my own experience must
be from the experiences of those pregnant teens. Yet, like the
teens in her book, I am going through the experience for the
first time with similar questions, tensions, and mixed emotions.
Like that night listening to bell hooks read from her book, I
have been granted a greater awareness of the very real
differences in race, class, and age about which I had previously
only theorized. With this in mind, I’d say that
Luttrell’s “activist ethnography” has done more
than change the way the researcher and the researched see
themselves in their world. It has afforded an opportunity for me
– and anyone else who reads the book – to see
ourselves differently as well.
References
Adair Breault, Donna. (2003). Flesh and stone: The aesthetics
of public space and its implications for professional
association. Educational Theory, 53(2), 185-201.
Behar, Ruth, and Deborah Gordon (Eds.). (1995). Women
writing culture. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Dewey, John. (1929). Experience and nature. Chicago:
Open Court.
Dewey, John. (1944). Democracy and education. New York:
Macmillan.
Dewey, John. (1980). Art as experience. New York:
Pedigree Books.
Dewey, John. (1990). The school and society and the child
and the curriculum. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press.
Dewey, John. (1997). How we think. New York: Dover.
Dewey, John. (1998). Experience and education. West
Lafayette, IN: Kappa Delta Pi.
Eisner, Elliott W. (1991). The enlightened eye: Qualitative
inquiry and the enhancement
of educational practice. New York:
Macmillan Publishing Company.
Freire, Paulo. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics,
democracy, and civic courage.
Translated by Patrick Clarke. Lanham: Roman &
Littlefield Publishers.
hooks, bell. (1996). Killing rage. New York: Henry
& Holt Company.
Lawrence-Lightfoot, Sara & Davis, Jessica Hoffman. (1997).
The art and science of
portraiture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Publishers.
Lincoln, Y.S., & Guba, E.G. (1985). Naturalistic
inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.
About the Reviewer
Donna Adair Breault is an assistant professor of
curriculum studies at Illinois State University. Her research
explores inquiry in education couched largely in Dewey’s
theory of inquiry and includes work in the following: notions of
public space, epistemic responsibility within educational
research, and inquiry in practice within schools. She has
recently published in Educational Theory, Educational
Studies, and is co-editor of a book entitled The Educative
Experience: Educators Reflect on the Writings of John Dewey
that will be published by Kappa Delta Pi later this year.
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