There is much controversy surrounding the effectiveness of institutions’ response strategy on the education outcomes for student parents.
Part of the controversy centers around how well Title IX is implemented across the nation. Research suggests there is both a lack of knowledge by students of their rights and a lack of accountability of school administrators who treat pregnant students unlawfully (Fershee, 2009; Gough, 2011). The pamphlet provided by the Office for Civil Rights has only recently become clearer for school administrators to understand. Its earliest publication in 1991 left much to the imagination in the ways of how to interpret and implement Title IX, stating only that “[t]hese approaches and programs, however, are not legal requirements under Title IX” (U.S Department of Education, 2013). Furthermore, in my personal experience, my rights as a pregnant college student were never presented to me, neither by professors nor personnel from student support services. The information was something I had to purposely seek out, due to the pressing need to withdraw from courses. If students are unaware of the rights they have, they are unable to utilize them and maximize the opportunity education presents.
Gough (2011) explores why many policies affecting mothering students receive dwindling funding. Despite increasing efforts to provide supports for parenting students, she says, much of society still views young parenthood – namely, teenage pregnancy – as a social problem. “Programs appeal to the cultural construction of teen pregnancy as burdens and risks” (Gough, p. 261) rather than viewing education in a more “holistic manner” (Gough, p. 261) for this student population. The value of educating student parents is placed in decreasing cyclical poverty and cyclical teenage pregnancy – more so, decreasing spending for social welfare programs – opposed to increasing one’s fulfillment from sheer achievement. As Fershee (2009) phrases it, “too often those who fight teen pregnancy fail to notice the difference between eradicating teen pregnancy and eradicating pregnant teens” (p. 79). Conservative law makers are simply less likely to fund programs they believe promote the demoralization of society, and more likely to support programs that propose to lessen society’s burden of caring for the immoral.
Thus, the marginalization of student parents remains, despite response strategies shifting from taking parenting students out of their original learning environments to providing relevant services and programs within their environments (Osofsky, et al., 1968; Fershee, 2009).