• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.57-83
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• 2011

The aim of this study is to elucidate the meaning of school dropout which teenager unmarried mothers have been experiencing. Thus, the researchers conducted in-depth interviews of 6 unmarried mothers to portray vividly their voices and the data were analyzed using a qualitative case study. Acording to the results, the meaning of school dropout of teenager unmarried mothers was redefined as the matter of "identity and status deprivation". Also, their school dropout expediences should be analyzed in the more extended perspective beyond the negative meaning of the existing studies. This meant " the one sided exclusion from academic community." This could be drawn with the implications that the exclusion acted as the inner mechanism of another social exclusion and their school dropout served as the bondages of their lifetime. That is, the problem of school dropout has the meaning of 'the present tense' and 'the future tense' simultaneously. Within this context, the phenomenon in which they experienced was acting as the foundation of a continuous exclusion and discrimination. Also, it was found that our society applied its standards to them unilaterally and they came to live as otherness through their pregnancy. Based on these results, this study has an important significance in that it overcame the limitations of previous research and investigated their subjective worlds.