Jackline Nabirye

Topic

Maternal Narratives: Understanding The Social Well-Being of Children Born to Young Mothers in Uganda

School of Child and Youth Care

Date & location

• Monday, August 31, 2026

• 9:30 A.M.

• Virtual Defence

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Doris Kakuru, School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria (Supervisor)

• Dr. Morgan Mowatt, School of Child and Youth Care, UVic (Member) 

External Examiner

• Dr. Rongedzayi Fambasayi, Child and Youth Care, Toronto Metropolitan University 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Ulrich Muller, Department of Psychology, UVic 

Abstract

This thesis explores how young mothers’ lived experiences shape the social well-being of their children in Iganga District, Uganda. Young motherhood in Uganda is shaped by poverty, gender inequality, and limited access to services, yet most research focuses on the young mother rather than her children. Using Social Support Theory, this study analyses 14 secondary life history transcripts from the Centering Marginal Voices project, a participatory youth-led research initiative. This study examines how social support experiences, institutional encounters, and mothers' own strategies shape children's social well-being. Through a reflexive thematic analysis this study addresses three objectives: how social support experiences affect children’s well-being, how institutional encounters shape the conditions children grow up in, and what strategies young mothers use to care for their children. 

The findings reveal that support is concentrated in grandmothers who provide directly for their grandchildren, while fathers are largely absent and community stigma shapes the social environment children inhabit. Schools exclude through poverty, kinship systems both support and exploit Despite these conditions, young mothers exercise agency working to provide for their children, choosing who to trust, and protecting their children through endurance and self-advocacy. 

The study extends Social Support Theory by showing that support is culturally, structurally constrained, and can be both present and harmful. It challenges the framing of young motherhood as the problem by documenting agency where the literature expects passivity and calls for policy reform centred on grandparent caregiver support, school fee reduction, youth-friendly health services, and paternal accountability.