Culture, school pregnancies, and society: pubertal rites in Cote d'Ivoire

It is essential to understand the relationship between pubertal rites and the goals of socioeconomic insertion of children to school. Formal education promotes girls' rights and contributes to the creation of an egalitarian society. It empowers women to make better informed life choices. This survey used ethnographic data from the pubertal rites Famian Bla in Baoule Iffou County and Yikee in Toura County, Cote d'Ivoire as a reference point to examine the law of obligatory education of children of both sexes (aged six to sixteen years) and school archives from 2013 to 2017. The findings revealed a double perception between pubertal rights and conventional schools on the one hand; and conflicts of institutional objectives between reproductive expectations of society and the socioeconomic integration of childhood in society. Thus the values of pubertal rites are imposed on the educational training of children especially the girl child. The article argues that through girls' pregnancies at school, the values of pubertal rites for the reproduction of the society are not opposed to the goal of socioeconomic integration of the conventional school.