Bricolage as Praxis: Integrating Multi-Theoretical Lenses in Community-Engaged Action Research with Teenage Mothers

Introduction

Globally, nearly 12 million adolescent girls give birth, with the highest rates in low- and middle-income regions where poverty, gender inequity, and limited education reinforce marginalisation. Teenage mothers frequently encounter disrupted schooling, social stigma, and diminished agency, limiting their capacity for self-regulation and future planning. While most interventions isolate educational or health components, few integrate psychosocial and community dimensions. This study applies bricolage, a multi-theoretical and adaptive framework grounded in critical, postmodern, and participatory paradigms, to generate globally relevant, locally grounded insights into transforming community support for young mothers.

Goals and Methods

The research aimed to design a strategy to enhance self-regulation among teenage mothers through a University-Community Engagement (UCE) approach. Guided by Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), iterative cycles of dialogue, storytelling, participatory workshops, and reflective memos involved teenage mothers, parents, community leaders, and academics. Data analysis followed bricolage logic, integrating Denzin & Lincoln’s eight moments of qualitative inquiry to merge historical, cultural, and epistemological perspectives.

Results

Findings revealed intersecting barriers, intergenerational silence, patriarchal norms, and fragmented community vision, while fostering collective agency, empathy, and parental participation. The co-created Self-Regulation Framework enhanced adolescent confidence, intergenerational dialogue, and communal ownership of youth development.

Conclusions

Bricolage offered epistemic flexibility and ethical reflexivity, transforming research into a communal learning process. As a decolonial praxis, it provides qualitative researchers worldwide with a model for engaging marginalised youth, balancing contextual complexity with transferable insights for inclusive social transformation.