ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSITIONS TO MOTHERHOOD

Objective. To use both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the experience of motherhood during adolescence and to evaluate devel opmental influences on the concept of maternal role. Design. (1) A gro unded theory approach was initially used to generate a hypothesis. Foc us groups and individual interviews were analyzed for concept and them e. (2) A quantitative method using correlational analysis was used to test the hypothesis generated by qualitative study. A structured inter view using five specific, scored questions about self and about mother hood was used to examine the relationship between developmental comple xity of responses to questions about self and questions about motherho od. Setting and Participants. The qualitative study involved group and individual interviews with 42 teenage mothers. The quantitative study involved individual interviews with 25 mothers, ages 14 to 18 years, at an innercity clinic for young parents and their infants. Race and e thnicity were heterogeneous, and 100% received Aid to Families With De pendent Children. Results. The major hypothesis generated from the qua litative analysis was that an adolescent mother's conceptualization of her maternal role is related to her own psychosocial and cognitive de velopment. The quantitative study revealed a strong correlation betwee n the developmental complexity of responses to questions about self an d the complexity of responses to questions about motherhood (r(2) =.81 ). Conclusion. The experience of motherhood and the conceptualization of the maternal role in adolescence is related to young mothers' psych osocial cognitive development.