Considering the complex and layered educational experiences surrounding girls’ education globally, schooling post-pregnancy sounds like a pretty good thing, right? Well, unfortunately, schooling for pregnant schoolgirls and student mothers in primary and secondary school contexts is marked by and rooted in colonial histories, socio-biopolitics, and patriarchal ideologies that perpetuate the marginalization of such students from mainstream school systems. As such, in some contexts, pregnant students and adolescent mothers face legal, socio-economic, and educational policy barriers that constrain their agency and limit their ability to pursue formal education. In a FreshEd episode on Gender and Equity in Education, Supriya Baily not only unpacks the foundational aspects of equity in girls’ education, but also centers gender justice and resistance to structural inequalities that remain blind to individual student histories, structural issues, and complex material conditions shaping girls’ varied educational journeys.

Before moving forward, it is critical to note that adolescent pregnancy is both a social and educational phenomenon that is not unique to the Majority World (or commonly termed as the “Global South”). While evidence from the World Health Organization indicates that each year in the Majority World, approximately 21 million adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 years get pregnant, countries in the Minority World do experience this phenomenon, albeit at a different scale, with the United States having one of the highest rates of adolescent births among countries in this category. This is a critical perspective to note because of the historical and contemporary colonial framings in mainstream discourse that perpetuate the othering and racializing of the Non-Western “Other.” As discussed by Karishma Desai and Chris Kirchgasler in a FreshEd episode on Colonial Residues of Domesticity in Education Development, development discourse continues to circulate and deploy the “racialized girls in crisis” visible through international organization programming, particularly those operating in the Majority World.

Desai and Kirchgasler posit that colonial education was centered on a “pedagogy of domesticity” that aimed to “civilize” the Black African woman, while also employing a colonial gaze on motherhood as a tool for transforming and developing the colony. As we historicize the colonial trope of Black African girlhood in formal education, it is important to note the colonial distortions of motherhood within African society. For example, in Akujobi’s research on Motherhood in African Literature and Culture and Semley’s research on Motherhood and Maternalism in Africa, motherhood is analyzed as both an ideology and an institution within African traditions that shaped African society as well as socioeconomic and political organization in the region even before colonization. Akujobi’s analysis revealed that within African culture, motherhood is a sacred identity with “a powerful spiritual component of the woman’s life” (p. 1), and childbearing bestows upon women certain levels of prestige. Without romanticizing this concept and institution of motherhood and recognizing some of the “oppressive” aspects that might be associated with this identity for some young women, colonial logics within missionary schools in Africa positioned pregnancy and motherhood as unacceptable and incompatible with formal schooling. As Desai and Kirchgasler note, “appropriate” education for African “native girls” was meant to prepare them for domestic roles supporting their marriage partners, who would lead the colony alongside officers from the metropole. As a result, pregnancy or motherhood outside of wedlock was perceived as unacceptable for the success and development of the colony, thus also incompatible with formal education.

With this premise, as argued by Semley, within Afrocentric contexts, pregnancy and motherhood go beyond personal and emotional realms, but also lead to historicizing questions about belonging in school spaces and the ways in which colonial structures have shifted and continue to shape contemporary education. This then leads us to think about how education policies on student pregnancy and motherhood shape learners’ trajectories post-pregnancy. Professor Bagele Chilisa from the University of Botswana created a typology of national policies on pregnancy in Sub-Saharan Africa’s education systems, which included expulsion policies, re-entry policies, and continuation policies. While policies exist, Frances Vavrus’ FreshEd episode on Schooling as Uncertainty reminds us that their existence does not guarantee access or continued schooling, and policy can “thwart” students’ aspirations and hope of improving their lives through education. What this means is that some schoolgirls might hope to continue their education while pregnant or after giving birth. However, as discussed by Chilisa, expulsion policies and some re-entry policies function as political tools for gatekeeping and determining who can or cannot return to school post-pregnancy. Some of my own work on schooling post-pregnancy has illustrated the role policy plays in facilitating the pushout of pregnant schoolgirls from school, thus contributing to the systemic disruption of girls’ educational trajectories and maintaining colonial logics in contemporary education.

Colonial logics of domesticity, moral regulation, subordination, and biopower shaped contemporary policies and practices that limited formal education opportunities for pregnant students and student mothers. While schooling post-pregnancy is not a magic bullet for supporting the learners, educators, scholars, and policymakers must be critically aware and question whose interests and logics are served in the “post”-colonial framings of schooling post-pregnancy. Also, it is crucial for formal education structures to pay attention to the students’ agency, individual histories, material conditions, and multidimensionality of lived experiences that shape their educational journeys.

September 1, 2026