Limitations of the Study

There were limitations to this study. As discussed in Chapter 3 on my methodological framework, I was intentional in using focus groups as the engagement tool with the girls. Focus groups allow for rich discussion between participants, “who build on each other’s comments and hold each other accountable for the veracity of what is said” (Linville, Lambert-Shute, Fruhauf & Piercy 2003). Most groups were formed of girls who had previous relationships with one another, having taken a program together. This ensured some degree of familiarity, a lively group discussion, and a communal recall of the experiences they shared in the program. I also chose a smaller number of focus groups and of girls, which meant that transcription was more manageable, and allowed for more in-depth dialogue and participation by each girl. However, there were a few girls in particular who had exceptionally insightful analysis and who had a lot to share- one girl from the 3rd focus group, and one from the 4th. My choice in methodology meant that I could not speak more fully with each of these girls, through one-on-one interviews. This would have allowed more depth to the discussions and likely to the findings. Another interesting approach would have been to ask the girl from FG3 and the girl from FG4 to come and have a discussion together, seeing what collaborative dialogue would emerge from their meeting one another and sharing their experiences.

Another limitation was the one-off nature of the focus groups. As mentioned in Chapter 3, I did not have the time that is required to build a relationship and trust with the girls.

Hosting multiple focus groups with the same group of girls, over a period of time, would have allowed the girls time for reflection. I was aware that the focus groups were not moments of passive in-taking of information on my part, but were an active collective process of learning and a honing of our critical thinking (hooks 1994), for the girls and for me as a facilitator. It helped elucidate our own thinking to ourselves and exposed both me and the girls to new ways of thinking about our experiences as young women and as agents. Had there been multiple moments of interaction, we could have built upon our collective learning and critical thinking, and delved more deeply in to the research questions. Additionally, more interactions would have possibly allowed for greater trust to be built, and for more disclosure of personal experiences of oppression by the girls and then discussion of how they narrated these and navigated them.

As I did not set out to study teen mothers’ experience and conceptions of agency, the focus groups in which these experiences arose were on-the-spot learning moments for me in regards to questions and prompts. During the focus groups, I prompted questions and dove in to lines of thought that were based purely on what the teen mothers were saying which necessitated further engagement with existing literature in the field. For example, I became aware of the literature on teenage pregnancy post-focus groups, and was made aware of the urgency of the form of knowledge production we were engaged in, given that “the failure of research in this field to present more than a one-dimensional picture which largely reflects the dominance of quantitative studies that are unable to capture the thoughts and feelings of teenage mothers themselves” (Wilson and

Huntington 2006: 64). Most research on teen motherhood does not center the voices of the mothers themselves. These conversations were incredibly important, and it would have been useful to engage the teen mothers through focus groups that were solely for them in terms of discussing their experiences of agency. It would have been helpful for the analysis in Chapter 5, had I gone in to our discussions with greater knowledge and specific questions, or had I had the chance to organize a follow-up focus group solely for the teen mothers. Unfortunately, time did not permit me to pursue such follow-up

There are limits to the intersectional analysis that is presented in this dissertation. I did not set out to intentionally ask questions about specific axes of identity and lived experience, and as discussed in Chapter 3, I did not collect demographic data from the girls who participated in the focus groups. As explained, extensive demographic data was not collected as I wanted the focus groups to feel informal and welcoming. I wanted the girls to feel like active participants, not simply subjects of a research study. So often, girls who are less advantaged have to fill out countless surveys and information forms in order to access services. I wanted to ensure that the girls had the choice to reveal the parts of their identities that they wanted to have known, throughout the focus group discussions. Thus, many identity brackets were unknown to me as the researcher unless the girls spoke specifically about those experiences.Based solely on visual cues, there was one girl from a visible minority group, and all girls were able-bodied. Many if not all came from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and four girls explicitly identified as something other than purely heterosexual (within the LGBTQ spectrum).

As four girls spoke of their lived experiences as existing on the LGBTQ spectrum, and as 5 girls spoke of their experiences as teen mothers, I was able to provide analysis that delved in to the intersections of these identities. However, I would have liked to explore how girls experienced racism, classism, or other forms of oppression based on identities that were unknown to me. As I relied on the girls to introduce their lived experiences as belonging to certain identities, I did not enable these particular intersectional

conversation moments. This is a lesson learned for me, that when designing research questions and focus group guides, consideration be given to how to ask questions in such a way that girls feel they can voice different lived experiences but are not required to ‘out’ those experiences if they so choose. It is thus a balance between introducing

possible avenues of thought to the girls, nudging them to consider whether those avenues resonate with how they experience the world, but also ensuring a safe space that does not require them or pressure them to then ‘out’ those identities or experiences.

Finally, I had originally hoped to be able to convey the overall research findings to the girls who participated; to provide them with a summary sheet demonstrating the effect of their participation on knowledge creation for both academic and community purposes.

This would help to negate the feeling of having been ‘mined’ for knowledge that they never get to see (Maguire 2008:420). A core value for feminist participatory research is that it lead to change---one way in which change is defined is through the development of critical thinking (or using Freirean terms, critical consciousness, see Freire 1985) for both the researcher and the participants (Maguire 2008:418), and indeed the focus groups were moments of agential critical engagement themselves. However, it would have been more inclusive to provide the girls with tangible proof of the effect of their words, through a summary sheet. Unfortunately, as is the case with much of community

programming, I lost touch with many of the girls after the focus groups. The majority of the groups are held in partnership with existing social services who serve ‘at-risk’ youth; there is an overrepresentation of lower socio-economic status girls and girls in need of social supports who access programming through social services. Consequently, it is not surprising in some ways that these girls pass in and out of contact, and whose lives are structured in ways that make it further challenging to find the time and resources to remain part of certain communities and groups.