People's experiences of racial inequality in adulthood are well documented, but less attention is given to the racial inequalities that children and adolescents face. "Growing Up in America" provides a rich, first-hand account of the different social worlds that teens of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds experience. In their own words, these American teens describe, conflicts with parents, pressures from other teens, school experiences, and religious beliefs that drive their various understandings of the world.
As the book reveals, teens' unequal experiences have a significant impact on their adult lives and their potential for social mobility. Directly confronting the constellation of advantages and disadvantages white, black, Hispanic, and Asian teens face today, this work provides a framework for understanding the relationship between socialization in adolescence and social inequality in adulthood. By uncovering the role racial and ethnic differences play early on, we can better understand the sources of inequality in American life.

Key Themes in Youth Sport is a concise, easy to read guide to core concepts in the study of young peoplea (TM)s relationship with sport, exercise and leisure. Designed to help students get to grips with the basics and go on to master the central ideas and debates in contemporary youth sport, this book reflects the multi-disciplinary interest in youth sport, exploring perspectives from sociology, psychology, physiology, sports policy, sports development, and physical education.

America's latest war, according to renowned social critic Henry Giroux, is a war on youth. While this may seem counterintuitive in our youth-obsessed culture, Giroux lays bare the grim reality of how our educational, social, and economic institutions continually fail young people. Their systemic failure is the result of what Giroux identifies as "four fundamentalisms" market deregulation, patriotic and religious fervor, the instrumentalization of education, and the militarization of society. We see the consequences most plainly in the decaying education system: schools are increasingly designed to churn out drone-like future employees, imbued with authoritarian values, inured to violence, and destined to serve the market. And those are the lucky ones. Young people who don't conform to cultural and economic discipline are left to navigate the neoliberal landscape on their own; if they are black or brown, they are likely to become ensnared by a harsh penal system. Giroux sets his sights on the war on youth and takes it apart, examining how a lack of access to quality education, unemployment, the repression of dissent, a culture of violence, and the discipline of the market work together to shape the dismal experiences of so many young people. He urges critical educators to unite with students and workers in rebellion to form a new pedagogy, and to build a new, democratic society from the ground up. Here is a book you won't soon forget, and a call that grows more urgent by the day.

Using innovative, participatory research methods, this book offers new insights into the issues surrounding parental separation or divorce from the unique perspective, and retrospectives, of young adults. As they look back on their childhood, their views provide valuable insights into how children experience and accommodate their parents' separation. Drawing on the qualitative research findings, Kay-Flowers develops a new framework to provide a useful analytical tool for academics and practitioners working with children and families to make sense of young people's experiences and puts forward suggestions for improving support for children in the future.

Youth Studies: an introduction is a clear, jargon-free and accessible textbook which will be invaluable in helping to explain concepts, theories and trends within youth studies. The concise summaries of key texts and the ideas of important theorists make the book an invaluable resource. The book also raises questions for discussion, with international case studies and up-to-date examples.

The book discusses important issues within youth studies, for example:

• education and opportunity
• employment and unemployment
• family, friends and living arrangements
• crime and justice
• identities
• health and sexuality
• citizenship and political engagement.

Suitable for a wide range of youth-related courses, this textbook provides a theoretical and empirical introduction to youth studies. It will appeal to undergraduate students on international academic and vocational courses, including sociology, politics, criminology, social policy, geography and psychology.

This pathbreaking book examines the strategies, successes, and challenges of youth advocacy organizations, highlighting the importance of local contexts for these efforts. Working between social movements and the political establishment, these organizations occupy a special niche in American politics and civil society. They use their position to change local agendas for youth and public perceptions of youth, and work to strengthen local community support systems.
"Between Movement and Establishment" describes how youth advocacy organizations affect change in a fragmented urban policy environment. It considers the different constituencies that organizations target, including public officials and policies, specific service sectors, and community members, and looks at the multiple tactics advocates employ to advance their reform agendas, such as political campaigns, accountability measures, building civic capacity, research, and policy formation. This work further examines the importance of historical, organizational, and political contexts in explaining the strategies, actions, and consequences of advocacy organizations' efforts at the local level, bringing to light what is effective and why.

First Published in 1996. Research on childhood is a growing area of interest in social policy. Covering both familial and institutional settings, this book explores relevant issues, including the female workforce and changing family forms.

View the Table of Contents. Read Chapter One.

aDoes a terrific job of laying out how the courts have conspired to limit the abortion access of teenaged girls. The results are clear, convincing, and enraging. How we- and the lawmakers who represent us- respond will indicate whether the pro-choice community has the wherewithal to fight back and defend Roe. Helena Silverstein has broken the silence on judicial bypass. It is now up to the rest of us to take action.a
--"Z Magazine"

aSilverstein implements a tremendous research design that yields a very well-written book, and the resulting evidence backs up a powerful indictment of street level justice at work.a--"Law and Politics Book Review"

aDoes a terrific job of laying out how the courts have conspired to limit the abortion access of teenage girls. The results are clear, convincing and enraging. . . . Silverstein has broken the silence on judicial bypass. It is now up to the rest of us to take action.a
--"New York Law Journal"

aSilversteinas book is a welcome addition because, rather than focusing on normative debates about abortion that almost anyone interested in the question is already familiar with, she focuses on how parental notification laws actually work on the ground. The book is judicious and moderate in tone. . . . A first-rate work of social science.a
--"American Prospect Online"

aThatas the law; whatas the practice? Helena Silverstein, a political scientist, surveyed the courts charged with implementing the parental bypass in Alabama, Tennessee and Pennsylvaniaa]Silversteinas findings, which range from disturbing to appalling, are set out in Girls on the Stand: How Courts Fail Pregnant Minors.a
--"San Francisco Chronicle"

In the wake of the Supreme Court's 1973 "Roe v. Wade" decision, many states tested "Roe" by placing restrictions on abortion rights. Most states now have parental consent laws for women under age eighteen. For minors who have reason to avoid parental involvement, the Supreme Court has instituted a generally welcomed compromise that allows minors to seek authorization by a third party, usually a judge. In this groundbreaking study, Silverstein demonstrates that this compromise is fatally flawed. . . . Silverstein does an excellent job of explicating the serious problems with this compromise, concluding that it is rooted in the myth that judges can be relied on to be unbiased. . . . Silverstein has produced an important contribution to women's studies and legal practice and theory.a
--"Publishers Weekly"

aHelena Silverstein's important research reveals a court system that all too often fails the most vulnerable teenagers.a
--Louise Melling, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project

aTaking on the emotionally charged issue of mandatory parental involvement in the abortion decisions of minors and judicial bypass provisions in three states, Silverstein carefully lays out and skillfully dismantles myths that sustain support for these policies. Her prose is lucid and engaging, her argument powerful and persuasive. This book is one of the best examples of a new generation of scholarship on law and legal processes.a
--Austin Sarat, co-editor of "From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America"

aSilverstein develops an incisive, empirically rich, and tightly reasoned case about how the beguiling amyth ofrightsa props up a fatally flawed public policy for pregnant minors. This is a veryoriginal, powerful, and important book that deserves to be read by a wide audience.a
--Michael McCann, co-author of "Distorting the Law: Politics, Media, and the Litigation Crisis"

aSilverstein's research on the by-pass protections written into parental notification legislation reveals how and why these protections provided for pregnant minors are subverted by clumsy bureaucratic procedures and by politically driven judicial decisions. In so doing, she brings empirical evidence, conceptual sophistication and extraordinary good sense to divisive controversies over reproductive rights, legality and democracy.a
--Stuart Scheingold, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Washington

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that states may require parental involvement in the abortion decisions of pregnant minors as long as minors have the opportunity to petition for a "bypass" of parental involvement. To date, virtually all of the 34 states that mandate parental involvement have put judges in charge of the bypass process. Individual judges are thereby responsible for deciding whether or not the minor has a legitimate basis to seek an abortion absent parental participation. In this revealing and disturbing book, Helena Silverstein presents a detailed picture of how the bypass process actually functions.

Silverstein led a team of researchers who surveyed more than 200 courts designated to handle bypass cases in three states. Her research shows indisputably that laws are being routinely ignored and, when enforced, interpreted by judges in widely divergent ways. In fact, she finds audaciousacts of judicial discretion, in which judges structure bypass proceedings in a shameless and calculated effort to communicate their religious and political views and to persuade minors to carry their pregnancies to term. Her investigations uncover judicial mandates that minors receive pro-life counseling from evangelical Christian ministries, as well as the practice of appointing attorneys to represent the interests of unborn children at bypass hearings.

Girls on the Stand convincingly demonstrates that safeguards promised by parental involvement laws do not exist in practice and that a legal process designed to help young women make informed decisions instead victimizes them. In making this case, the book casts doubt not only on the structure of parental involvement mandates but also on the naAve faith in law that sustains them. It consciously contributes to a growing body of books aimed at debunking the popular myth that, in the land of the free, there is equal justice for all.

Dis die onstuimige tagtigerjare.

Bethel Hendrix, haar broers en hulle ma reis deur die land in ʼn Kombi.

Hulle leef ʼn nomadiese bestaan en bly net vir ʼn kort ruk in een dorp voor hulle na ʼn volgende beweeg.

Om die gesin aan die lewe te hou, verkoop Bethel se ma vetkoek.

Maar oral waar hulle kom, is dit duidelik dat die gesin anders is. Dat hulle arm is. Dat hulle nie in ʼn regte huis bly nie. Dat hulle ma anders lyk en dink. Dat daar nie ʼn pa saam met hulle is nie.

Al wat Bethel graag wil hê is ʼn plek waar sy haarself kan wees …

How do we respond to harm faced by young people beyond their front doors? Can practitioners keep young people safe at school, in their neighbourhoods or with their friends when social care systems are designed to work with families? The Contextual Safeguarding approach has transformed how policy makers, social care leaders, practitioners and researchers understand harm that happens to young people in their communities and what is required to respond. Since 2015 it has been tested across the UK and internationally. This book shares stories from child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation and peer violence about what has been learnt on this journey. For anyone interested in how we safeguard young people beyond their front doors, this book shows how much we have achieved and raises big questions about what more we need to do to ensure young people are safe – whatever the context.

View the Table of Contents
Read the Introduction

Read the Gawker Review

Listen to her NPR Interview

The Sociology of "Hooking Up": Author Interview on Inside Higher Ed

Newsweek: Campus Sexperts

Watch Bogle's interview on CBS

Hookup culture creates unfamiliar environment - to parents, at least

Hooking Up: What Educators Need to Know - An op-ed on CHE by the author

"Bogle is a smart interviewer and gets her subjects to reveal intimate and often embarrassing details without being moralizing. This evenhanded, sympathetic book on a topic that has received far too much sensational and shoddy coverage is an important addition to the contemporary literature on youth and sexuality."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"A page turner! This book should be required reading for college students and their parents! Bogle doesn't condemn hooking up, but she does explain it. This knowledge could help a lot of young people make better choices and get insight into their own behavior whether or not they choose to hook up."
--Pepper Schwartz, author of "Everything You Know about Sex and Love is Wrong"

"In her ambitious sociological study, Kathleen Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University, offers valuable insight on the hook-up craze sweeping college campuses and examines the demise of traditional dating, how campus life promotes casual sex, its impact on post-college relationships, and more. Donat let your college freshman leave home without it."
--"Main Line Today"

aHooking Up uses interviews with both women and men to understand why dating has declined in favor of a new script for sexual relationships on college campuses. . . . Boglepresents a balanced analysis that explores the full range of hooking-up experiences.a
--Joel Best, author of "Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads"

It happens every weekend: In a haze of hormones and alcohol, groups of male and female college students meet at a frat party, a bar, or hanging out in a dorm room, and then hook up for an evening of sex first, questions later. As casually as the sexual encounter begins, so it often ends with no strings attached; after all, it was ajust a hook up.a While a hook up might mean anything from kissing to oral sex to going all the way, the lack of commitment is paramount.

Hooking Up is an intimate look at how and why college students get together, what hooking up means to them, and why it has replaced dating on college campuses. In surprisingly frank interviews, students reveal the circumstances that have led to the rise of the booty call and the death of dinner-and-a-movie. Whether it is an expression of postfeminist independence or a form of youthful rebellion, hooking up has become the only game in town on many campuses.

In Hooking Up, Kathleen A. Bogle argues that college life itself promotes casual relationships among students on campus. The book sheds light on everything from the differences in what young men and women want from a hook up to why freshmen girls are more likely to hook up than their upper-class sisters and the effects this period has on the sexual and romantic relationships of both men and women after college. Importantly, she shows us that the standards for young men and women are not as different as they used to be, as women talk about afriends with benefitsa and aone and donea hook ups.

Breakingthrough many misconceptions about casual sex on college campuses, Hooking Up is the first book to understand the new sexual culture on its own terms, with vivid real-life stories of young men and women as they navigate the newest sexual revolution.

This essay collection explores the phenomenon of "teen TV" in the United States, analyzing the meanings and manifestations of this category of programming from a variety of perspectives. Part One views teen television through an industrial perspective, examining how networks such as WB, UPN, The CW, and The N have created a unique economic framework based on demographic niches and teen-focused narrowcasting. Part Two focuses on popular teen programs from a cultural context, evaluating how such programs reflect and at times stretch the envelope of the cultural contexts in which they are created. Finally, Part Three explores the cultures of reception (including the realms of teen consumerism, fan discourse, and unofficial production) through which teens and consumers of teen media have become authors of the teenage experience in their own right.

How are youth cultural identities rooted in gender, ethnicity and place? What resources do young people from ethnic minorities use in creating their cultural identities? Drawing upon interdisciplinary research, Ulrike Ziemer's case study demonstrates the different ways in which young people from ethnic minorities respond to the social, political, and cultural transformations of post-Soviet Russia and provides a detailed analysis of how local vs. global relations are experienced outside the West. Relying on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Ziemer explores the complex processes of identity formation and cultural experiences among young Armenians in Krasnodar krai and young Adyghs in the Republic of Adyghea. Both ethnic groups, Armenians and Adyghs, have a minority status in Russia, yet Adyghs are indigenous to the region while Armenians constitute a diaspora people. Ulrike Ziemer is the first to examine specifically Armenian and Adygh youth identities in the context of everyday life experiences in post-Soviet Russia.

This volume provides practitioners with clear, helpful information about the process of understanding and engaging a wide array of boys and adolescent males in counseling. It supplies case examples and covers topics including race, ethnicity, religion, and other cultural factors of boys. A practical tool for school and mental health practitioners who need to understand and respond to the developmental and special issues of boys and adolescent males, Counseling Troubled Boys creates a bridge between young men and helping professionals. The key content includes adjustment issues, strategies for establishing rapport, interventions, case studies, and suggestions for future training and research.

In the last 20 years, state care in China has shifted away from institutional care, towards alternative care that recognises children's rights to an inclusive childhood and adulthood. This book reviews changes in policy and practices that affected the generation of young people who grew up in state care in China during this time. The young people themselves give their perspectives on their childhood, their current experiences and their future plans for independence. These insights, combined with analysis of national state care datasets and policy documents, provide answers to questions about the impact of different types of alternative care on young people's experiences, the impact on their identity and their capacity to live independently, finding a job, a home and relationships. All countries continue to struggle with how to improve the quality child protection practices and alternatives to group care. The results here provide evidence to researchers, governments and professionals to help to improve social inclusion by changing institutionalisation practices.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Preface.

aComing from multiple disciplinary perspectives and employing diverse methodologies, the contributors emphasize the girlsa and young womenas strength in creating safe spaces with family, friends, and mentors; claiming their sexuality; and developing personal and public resistance strategies. Taken together, the essays are a valuable contribution to the field of gender studies, urban ethnography, and adolescent development, and would appeal to various readers, including activists and undergraduates.a
--"Choice"

aThis new edition of Urban Girls is a rare gem. In fact, you won't find another book that comes even close to offering the range and depth of understanding you'll read in these pages. This is a book about the complexity of urban girlsa lives that situates their struggles, hopes, and dreams in relationships with friends, families, schools, neighborhoods, and community centers. Anyone who wants to have a real conversation about policies and practices that support girlsa strengths and resilience should read and use this book.a
--Lyn Mikel Brown, author of "Girlfighting"

aOffers a significant contribution to the field of gender and adolescent development. Using cutting edge theory and research, it opens windows into the lives of a diverse group of adolescent girls. By emphasizing the social context of these girlsa lives, the contributors illustrate the complex interplay between individuals and the relationships with which they engage and the choices they make.a
--Lauren E. Duncan, Smith College

Urban Girls, published in 1996, was one of the first volumes to showcase the lives of girls growing up in contexts ofurban poverty and sometimes racism and violence. It spoke directly to young women who, often for the first time, were seeing their own stories and those of their friends explained in the materials they were asked to read. The volume has helped to shape the way in which we study girls and understand their development over the past decade.

Urban Girls Revisited explores the diversity of urban adolescent girls' development and the sources of support and resilience that help them to build the foundations of strength that they need as they enter adulthood. Urban girls are frequently marginalized by poverty, ethnic discrimination, and stereotypes suggesting that they have deficits compared to their peers. In fact, urban girls do often "grow up fast," taking on multiple adult roles and responsibilities in contexts of high levels of adversities. Yet a majority of these girls show remarkable strengths in the face of challenges, and their families and communities provide many assets to support their development. This new volume showcases these strengths.

Contributors: Amy Alberts, Natasha Alexander, Murray Anderson, Elizabeth Banister, Cecilia Benoit, Kristen Boelcke-Stennes, Ana Mari Cauce, Elise D. Christiansen, Brianna Coffino, Catherine L. Costigan, Karin Coyle, Anita Davis, Jill Denner, Sumru Erkut, Kenyaatta Etchison, Michelle Fine, Yulika Forman, Emily Genao, Mikael Jansson, Chalene Lechuga, Stacey J. Lee, Richard M. Lerner, Nancy Lopez, Ann S. Masten, Jennifer McCormick, Jennifer Pastor, Erin Phelps, Leslie Prescott, Jean E. Rhodes, Ritch C. Savin-Williams, Anne Shaffer, Renee Spencer, Pamela R. Smith, Carl S. Taylor, Jill McLean Taylor, Virgil A. Taylor, Maria Elena Torre, Allison J.Tracy, Carmen N. Veloria, Martina C. Verba, and Janie Victoria Ward.

Rund 40 Beitrage aus verschiedenen geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen prasentieren ein interdisziplinares Analysepanorama zu den Herausforderungen der Demokratie in Geschichte und Gegenwart.

Teenage parenthood is recognised as a significant disadvantage in western industrialised nations. It has been found to increase the likelihood of poverty and to reinforce inequalities. This book explores, for the first time, the links between welfare state provision and teenage reproductive behaviour across a range of countries with differing welfare regimes. Drawing on both welfare state and feminist literature, as well as on new empirical evidence, the book compares public policy responses to teenage parenthood in each 'family' of welfare regime: Nordic, Liberal and Continental (Western European); analyses the different socio-political contexts in which teenage pregnancy is constructed as a social problem and identifies best practice in Europe and the USA. Countries included in the study are the UK, USA, New Zealand, France, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Canadian province of Quebec and Russia. The contributors are all internationally recognised experts in the fields of welfare and/or gender studies. "When children become parents" is important reading for a wide audience of students, policy makers, practitioners and academics in sociology, social policy, social geography, education, psychology, and youth and gender studies.

Stress. Fatigue. Depression. Sleeping problems. Issues with focus and concentration. Headaches. Substance abuse. These are all very common problems that teenagers have to deal with. It turns out that rather than just sending kids to therapy or giving them some prescriptions for medication, there are many alternative therapies available that have evidence-based track records of success. This book presents therapies based around the five senses-including aromatherapy, yoga, sound/music therapy-to help teens with their mental health. Each chapter reviews the signs and symptoms of a problem and presents detailed treatment protocols and supportive therapies. This all-inclusive book will be one-stop shopping for teens and their parents looking for a different way to handle life's problems. As both a trained medical doctor on the faculty at Harvard and a noted alternative medicine specialist, Nada Milosavljevic brings a rich background of experience to this book.

This in-depth study explores the motivations for 'planned' teenage pregnancy in England. The findings have important implications for the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy and the increasing political agenda on young people and health.The report is based on 51 in-depth interviews, undertaken among teenagers in six relatively disadvantaged locations who reported their pregnancy as 'planned' (41 women and 10 men). Key findings include: -Young women report varied accounts of the extent to which their pregnancy was planned.Young women's childhood and background act as contributing factors to 'planning' a pregnancy.More explicit and direct influences include viewing pregnancy as a chance to gain a new identity and change direction in life. - vbTab]- vbTab]- vbTab]- vbTab]The report includes numerous quotations from young people and documents two contrasting case studies. 'Planned' teenage pregnancy will be of interest to practitioners, policy-makers and researchers in the teenage pregnancy field, including youth workers, Connexions PAs, social workers, and teachers who work with young people before conception, as well as teenage pregnancy co-ordinators, teenage-parent support workers, midwives and health visitors who work closely with young parents or parents-to-be.

Changes in biological processes, relationships, and community interactions influence the emergence of sexuality in all young people. The process is more complex and difficult for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) teenagers. Fortunately, the cultural changes that have allowed LGB youths to become more open about themselves at earlier ages have also allowed social and behavioral scientists the opportunity to study them. The essays in this volume explore the psychological dimensions of LGB identities from puberty to adulthood. The essays focus on three general areas: theoretical frameworks that are important in understanding the development of sexual orientation in adolescence, challenges faced by LGB youth, and issues related to interventions and services for LGB youths in community settings. This volume presents authoritative, research-based reviews of this ever-increasing area of study and social concern.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"A groundbreaking volume of social science research that provides us with the missing presence of adolescent Latina girls in research on the family, institutional barriers, and support. A must read in Latina/o Studies!"
--Mary Romero, author of "Maid in the USA"

"Denner and Guzman bring together research that counters with data revealing that young Latinas are successfully negotiating challenges they encounter."
--"Hispanic Link Weekly Report"

Latinas are now the largest minority group of girls in the country. Yet the research about this group is sparse, and there is a lack of information to guide studies, services or education for the rapidly growing Latino population across the U.S. The existing research has focused on stereotypical perceptions of Latinas as frequently dropping out of school, becoming teen mothers, or being involved with boyfriends in gangs.

Latina Girls brings together cutting edge research that challenges these stereotypes. At the same time, the volume offers solid data and suggestions for practical intervention for those who study and work to support this population. It highlights the challenges these young women face, as well as the ways in which they successfully negotiate those challenges. The volume includes research on Latinas and their relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners; academics; career goals; identity; lifelong satisfaction; and the ways in which they navigate across cultures and gender roles.

Latina Girls is the first book to pull together research on the overall strengths and strategies that characterize Latina adolescents' lives in the U.S. It will be of keyinterest and practical use to those who study and work with Latina youth.

This is the book that youth workers who want to put into practice their desire to "meet youth where they're at" have been waiting for. Narrative Approaches to Youth Work provides hope-filled and fresh conversational practices anchored in a critical intersectional analysis of power and a relational ethic of care. These practices help youth workers answer the all-too-common question, what do I do when I do youth work? The concepts and skills presented in this book position youth workers to do youth work in ways that honor youth agency and resistance to oppression, invite a multiplicity of possibilities, and situate youth and youth workers alike within broader social contexts that influence their lives and their relationship together. Drawing on the author's 30-plus years of working alongside young people and training youth workers in contexts ranging from recreation centers to homeless shelters, this book provides a rich and deliberate mix of theoretical grounding, practical application, real-life vignettes, and questions for in-depth self-reflection. Throughout Narrative Approaches to Youth Work, readers hear from a wise and thoughtful squad of youth workers talking about how they strive to do socially just, accountable, critical youth work.

Feeling It brings together twelve chapters from researchers in Chicanx studies, education, feminist studies, linguistics, and translation studies to offer a cohesive yet broad-ranging exploration of the issue of affect in the language and learning experiences of Latinx youth. Drawing on data from an innovative social justice-oriented university-community partnership based in young people's social agency and their linguistic and cultural expertise, the contributors are unified by their focus on a single year in the history of this partnership; their analytic focus on race, language, and affect in educational contexts; and their shared commitment to ethnography, discourse analysis, and qualitative methods, informed by participatory and social justice paradigms for research with youth of color. Designed specifically for use in courses, with theoretical framing by the co-editors and ethnographic contributions from leading and emergent scholars, this book is an important and timely resource on affect, race, and social justice in the United States. Thanks to its interdisciplinary grounding, Feeling It will be of interest to future teachers and to researchers and students in applied linguistics, education, and Latinx studies, as well as related fields such as anthropology, communication, social psychology, and sociology.

aFast Cars, Cool Rides is empirically rich, full of arresting observations and revealing verbatim quotes.a
--"American Journal of Sociology"

"Best shines a fluorescent street light on young people in high octane motion, making meaning and community through their cars. . . . Best's subjects articulate an intricate interplay of class, race, gender, and identity formation; she's given a great American institution its props."
--Donna Gaines, author of "Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids"

"Best's insights and observations should help youth workers and other adults understand this often powerful symbol."
--"Youth Today"

"How pleasantly jarring to be invited to enter Santa Clara Street, to feel the heat of the summer, to smell the alcohol on the breaths of the youth, to hear the bottles breaking on the sidewalk and to, most importantly, be treated to a fine analysis of the experiences of some of these cruisers."
--Daniel Thomas Cook, author of "The Commodification of Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer"

"Has the potential to expand our knowledge about young people's great social power, their contributions to changing culture, and their influence in marketplace decision-making. . . . A compelling and thought-provoking read."
--Debra Van Ausdale, author of "The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism"

aIn Fast Cars, Cool Rides, Amy Best takes the inside lane on how and why young people use their cars as a means of cultural expression. Whether the school parking lot, auto-shop class, or the San Jose cruising scene, and whether the goal is personal freedom, racial solidarity, masculine power, or femininerebelliousness, the car is the vehicle for the job, affording youth the symbolic and material means to solidify their identities within the context of global consumer culture. An intelligent, well-written book on kids and their cars; buckle up and take this ride."
--Laura Grindstaff, author of "The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows"

"Amy Best once again proves herself a most astute observer of youth cultures. This exciting study of diverse American car cultures brims with insight about identity formation, commodification, and the making of diverse modern selves."
--Janice M. Irvine, author of "Talk About Sex: The Battles Over Sex Education in the United States"

"Social observers from Tom Wolfe to George Lucas have seen Californians' car-cruising as emblematic of our larger society and social structure. Amy Best studied the scene in San Jose. In her eyes, young people's actions and attitudes toward cars reveal links among gender, ethnicity, material culture, and contemporary social structure."
--Joel Best, author of "Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists"

Bass booms from custom speakers, pick-up trucks boast lowered suspensions, chrome rims reflect stoplights, and bare arms dangle from open windows. Welcome to Santa Clara Street in San Jose, California, where every weekend kids come to cruise late at night, riding their cars slow and low. On the surrounding, less-traveled streets you can also find young men racing customized cars to see who has the "go," not just the "show." And, in the daylight hours, in a nearby suburb, you might find a brand new SUV parked in the driveway, a parents' Sweet 16present.

In Fast Cars, Cool Rides Amy Best provides a fascinating account of kids and car culture. Encompassing everything from learning to drive to getting one's license, from cruising to customizing, from racing to buying one's first car, Best shows that never before have cars played such an important role in the lives of America's youth as they do today. Drawing on interviews with over 100 young men and women, aged 15-24, and five years of research--cruising hot spots, sitting in on auto shop class, attending car shows--Best explores the fast-paced world of kids and their cars. She reveals a world where cars have incredible significance for kids today, as a means of transportation and thereby freedom to come and go, as status symbols and as a means to express their identities. But while having a fast car or a cool ride can carry tremendous importance for these kids, Best shows that the price, especially when it can cost $30,000, can be steep as working-class kids work jobs to make car payments and as college kids forgo moving out of Mom and Dad's house because they can't pay for rent, car payments, and car insurance.

Fast Cars, Cool Rides offers a rare and rich portrait of the complex and surprising roles cars can play in the lives of young Americans. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a cool ride.