This article seeks to address the dearth of evidence on early adolescent understandings and experiences of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in Ethiopia and Rwanda, drawing on a multisite qualitative research study with 10-to 12-year-old and 14-to 15-year-old male and female adolescents and a range of adult participants. The article is informed by a conceptual framework that draws on Amartya Sen's capability approach, which calls for investments in a broad set of assets that expand individuals' capacity to "be" and to "do." Using SRH as a focal lens, the article considers the role played by gendered social norms in adolescents' experiences of SRH-related understandings and experiences. Three key interrelated gender themes emerge from our thematic analyses of qualitative evidence generated by our multimethods approach: puberty transitions, sexuality, and victim blaming. In our analyses, we pay attention to diversity (e.g., age, gender, place of residence) among adolescents within and across the two focal countries and consider how discriminatory gendered social norms play a role in hindering the effective uptake of expanding health services. We conclude by emphasizing the need for program designers and implementers to address the role of underlying social norms in a more strategic and context-specific way to help young people navigate their sexual and reproductive lives.

Adolescent motherhood can alter the future opportunities available to girls and the challenges they face. This article considers how adolescents’ capabilities are influenced by pregnancy and motherhood, using a mixed-methods case study of Rwanda. Adolescent motherhood impacts girls’ lives across multiple capabilities including education, psychosocial well-being, voice and agency, and economic empowerment. Rarely were adolescent mothers in our sample supported to return to school, for instance. Their pregnancy and motherhood were stigmatised by their families, peers, wider community and service providers. The psychosocial consequences of adolescent motherhood are significant, linked to social isolation and multifaceted stressors, including poverty. Despite recent policy and service improvements, adolescent mothers continue to be left behind.

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This article discusses the piloting of vignette research tools within focus group discussions involving 34 adolescent girls aged 15–19 in Rwanda. The purpose of the research was to elucidate norms around sexual violence. Through a ‘collective capabilities’ lens, which focuses on ways to move beyond change at the individual level towards empowerment processes that benefit all girls, we reflect on the opportunities this methodological tool offers for expanding girls’ understanding of the norms that enable sexual violence, and the context-specific ways they can respond. After providing an overview of the vignettes exercise and the way in which the vignette on sexual violence was used with participants, we present girls’ accounts of sexual violence drawn from discussions based around the vignettes and our analysis of these findings. We find that gendered social norms around gender, sexuality, age, and responsibility for safety that apportion blame to girls who experience sexual violence play a role in preventing girls from using reporting mechanisms. Although girls have a strong sense of this being unfair, they realise they must also find ways to navigate these norms to avoid being blamed for their own victimisation. Based on this data, we suggest that the use of vignettes in the context of qualitative longitudinal research offers insights into norms about the drivers and causes of sexual violence that are otherwise challenging to elicit because of the sensitivity of the topic. We find that vignettes can be an empowering tool, both in raising ‘unspoken’ issues girls face and in creating the opportunity for girls to collectively work out pathways to accountability in a context where sexual violence is widespread but underreported. However, strategies to address sexual violence must account for barriers to reporting that include the social implications for girls of identifying perpetrators and exposing themselves to stigma and blame.