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.

Focusing on the emergence of gender difference as a major life transition, this study provides a summary of interdisciplinary research that includes contributions from an international team of leading experts. Puberty is one of the most important life transitions. At no other time are there such significant and rapid transformations in biology and social and psychological development. Topics covered in this volume include biological aspects of puberty, body image, aggression, sexual abuse, opposite-sex relationships and the psychopathology of puberty.

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.

This book guides sport coaches, parents and administrators in creating a caring and task-involving sport climate that helps athletes perform their best and have an enjoyable and meaningful sport experience. It introduces the concept of a caring and task-involving climate and provides a "how to" guide to creating this climate in sport. Firstly, this guide introduces the caring and task-involving climate and summarizes research highlighting its many benefits. Secondly, the five features of this climate are presented along with the reflective exercises for developing them within a team. Coaches will see strategies in action, sample conversations, and a variety of ways to implement the features of a caring and task-involving experience. By describing how it may be implemented and methods for overcoming possible challenges, this book finally highlights how parents and sport administrators can support the creation and preservation of caring and task-involving climates. By helping teams develop caring climates that optimize athletes' sport experience and performance, this book is essential reading for coaches, sport administrators, parents, and sport psychology practitioners. It will also be of great interest to those who have minimal training in sport psychology, but who are involved in sport at many levels, such as youth and high school.

The life stage of adolescence now occurs in most corners of the world, but it takes different forms in different regions. Scholars from eight regions of the world describe the distinct nature of adolescence, drawing on research to address standard topics regarding this age and show how it has a different effect across societies. As a whole, the book depicts how rapid global change is dramatically altering the experience of the adolescent transition, creating new opportunities and challenges for adolescents, parents, teachers, and professionals.

The life stage of adolescence now occurs in most corners of the world, but it takes different forms in different regions. Scholars from eight regions of the world describe the distinct nature of adolescence, drawing on research to address standard topics regarding this age and show how it has a different effect across societies. As a whole, the book depicts how rapid global change is dramatically altering the experience of the adolescent transition, creating new opportunities and challenges for adolescents, parents, teachers, and professionals.

Adolescents are among the most sleep deprived populations in our society. This book explores the genesis and development of sleep patterns at this phase of the life span. It examines biological and cultural factors that influence sleep patterns, presents risks associated with lack of sleep, and reveals the effects of environmental factors such as work and school schedules on sleep. This study will appeal to psychologists and sociologists of adolescence who have not yet considered the important role of sleep in the lives of our youth.

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.

Stereotypes of economically marginalized black and brown youth focus on drugs, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood. Families, schools, nonprofit organizations, and institutions in poor urban neighborhoods emphasize preventing such "risk behaviors." In The Making of a Teenage Service Class, Ranita Ray uncovers the pernicious consequences of concentrating on risk behaviors as key to targeting poverty. Having spent three years among sixteen black and Latina/o youth, Ray shares their stories of trying to beat the odds of living in poverty. Their struggles of hunger, homelessness, and untreated illnesses are juxtaposed with the perseverance of completing homework, finding jobs, and spending long hours traveling from work to school to home. By focusing on the lives of youth who largely avoid drugs, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood, the book challenges the idea that targeting these "risk behaviors" is key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Ray compellingly demonstrates how the disproportionate emphasis on risk behaviors reinforces class and race hierarchies and diverts resources that could support marginalized youth's basic necessities and educational and occupational goals.

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.

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

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.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"In this volume, Amy Best offers critical youth studies an epistemological compass, a collection of essays that spans across nations, methods, sexualities, ethnicities, generations and age, reflecting provocatively on how we create knowledge with, for and by youth. This book promises to be a classic for the next generation of scholars perched to engage critically, respectfully, theoretically and provocatively with youth, to inscribe a twenty-first century signature on critical youth studies."
--Michelle Fine, co-author of "Working Method: Research and Social Justice"

"A powerful and compelling book that represents cutting-edge new directions in critical youth studies. This is a passionate call for a critical moral consciousness that will create more humane spaces for today's youth in our complex global culture."
--Norman K. Denzin, co-editor of "The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research"

From youth culture to adolescent sexuality to the consumer purchasing power of children en masse, studies are flourishing. Yet doing research on this unquestionably more vulnerable--whether five or fifteen--population also poses a unique set of challenges and dilemmas for researchers. How should a six-year-old be approached for an interview? What questions and topics are appropriate for twelve year olds? Do parents need to give their approval for all studies?

In Representing Youth, Amy L. Best has assembled an important group of essays from some of todayas top scholars on the subject of youth that address these concerns head on, providing scholars with thoughtful and often practical answers to their many methodological concerns. Theseoriginal essays range from how to conduct research on youth in ways that can be empowering for them, to issues of writing and representation, to respecting boundaries and to dealing with issues of risk and responsibility to those interviewed. For anyone doing research or working with children and young adults, Representing Youth offers an indispensable guide to many of the unique dilemmas that research with kids entails.

Contributors include: Amy L. Best, Sari Knopp Biklen, Elizabeth Chin, Susan Driver, Marc Flacks, Kathryn Gold Hadley, Madeline Leonard, C.J. Pascoe, Rebecca Raby, Alyssa Richman, Jessica Taft, Michael Ungar, Yvonne Vissing, and Stephani Etheridge Woodson.

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.

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.

How do young people get by in hard times and hard places? Have they become a "lost generation" disconnected from society's mainstream? Do popular ideas about social exclusion or a welfare-dependent underclass really connect with the lived experiences of the so-called "disaffected," "disengaged" and "difficult-to-reach"? Based on close-up research with young men and women from localities suffering social exclusion in extreme form," Disconnected Youth? will appeal to all those who are interested in understanding and tackling the problems of growing up in Britain's poor neighborhoods.

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.

The decline of the socialist governments in Eastern and Central Europe and the resulting political and economic reorganizations of the 1990s provided a dramatic illustration of the far-reaching effects of social change. This important volume considers the processes through which societal changes exert an impact on the course of adolescent development and adolescents' social and psychological adjustment. Additionally, several chapters identify individual and contextual factors that can modify the impact of social change and enhance the likelihood of a successful transition to adulthood. Chapter authors include a diverse group of social scientists from Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

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.

This unique volume explores why and how youth join and leave gangs, as a lens for exploring intervention and prevention through comparative, international research. The book explores three key questions: how do youth gangs form and how do they change over time? Why do youth join street gangs, and why do they leave? How can we use this knowledge to foster more effective interventions for gang problems? Drawing from research conducted in ten different countries (Belgium, Canada, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Venezuela)and a variety of disciplines, sixteen original chapters provide unique insights into: 1) patterns of gang participation and how it impacts individual behavior 2) individual transitions and their impact on gang transformations 3) fostering gang transition and transformation. This work will be of interest to researchers in Criminology and Criminal Justice, particularly with an interest in youth gangs, developmental and life-course criminology, criminal careers, and criminal networks, as well as related fields such as sociology, psychology, and comparative law, and public health.

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.

"The first thing that makes Fong's book stand out from others is its timely presentation of the consequences of China's one-child policy, rather than being a discussion of the phenomenon in its early stage. Now that Chinese singletons are reaching adulthood, the consequences of the one-child policy have become a powerful social force driving Chinese society in an unprecedented direction. The second thing that makes Fong's book unique is its ethnographical research. Her in-depth personal experience enables her to observe and reveal the social reality of contemporary China. This vividly presented reality shows the outcome of the one-child policy interrelated and integrated with the political, educational, cultural, and economic systems of China."--CHOICE
"Vanessa L. Fong's Only Hope: Coming of Age under China's One Child Policy is an enjoyable read and an informative study of only children in urban China....[T]he main strength of Fong's book lies in the combination of solid survey data with equally solid information gathered through interviews and everyday observations....Fong's book will be of great interest to scholars and graduate students of contemporary China. It will be of particular interest to those who want to learn more about urban China's education system, which is fiercely competitive and demanding."--The China Journal

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"This book opens discussion related to the female gender role and the socialization of girls in many different, thought provoking ways, and serves as a timely critique of the current societal messages directed toward girls."
--"Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy"

"Brown declares that to change the patterns of female animosity we must address the social environment as well as the individual."
--"Women's Review of Books"

"Brown's book, however, is a clear departure from the film [Mean Girls] stereotypes about dumb, mean, backstabbing girls."
--"Waterville, Sunday Morning Sentinel"

""Girlfighting" is a serious and intelligent analysis of the cruelty and meanness involved in girls' relationships at each stage of development."
--"Pyschiatric Services"

aLyn Brown gives us a wider, different, and eye-opening view of the problem. . . This is the smartest book on mean girls around.a
--Sharon Lamb, author of "The Secret Lives of Girls"

aWhen it comes to girlsa issues, there arenat many people more expert than Lyn Mikel Brown.a
--"Daughters magazine"

"Brown provides an excellent resource, thorough and readable. Women can find their history in this book."
--"VOYA"

aThe book is a good contribution to the discussion...a
--Metapsychology

.,."Brown does an excellent job of continually casting girls' struggles in the larger frame of social and cultural disadvantages and the narrow role possibilities that supress their authenticity."
--"Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal"

For some time, reality TV, talk shows, soap-operas, and sitcoms have turned their spotlights on women andgirls who thrive on competition and nastiness. Few fairytales lack the evil stepmother, wicked witch, or jealous sister. Even cartoons feature mean and sassy girls who only become sweet and innocent when adults appear. And recently, popular books and magazines have turned their gaze away from ways of positively influencing girls' independence and self-esteem and towards the topic of girls' meanness to other girls. What does this say about the way our culture views girlhood? How much do these portrayals affect the way girls view themselves?

In Girlfighting, psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown scrutinizes the way our culture nurtures and reinforces this sort of meanness in girls. She argues that the old adage "girls will be girls"--gossipy, competitive, cliquish, backstabbing-- and the idea that fighting is part of a developmental stage or a rite-of-passage, are not acceptable explanations. Instead, she asserts, girls are discouraged from expressing strong feelings and are pressured to fulfill unrealistic expectations, to be popular, and struggle to find their way in a society that still reinforces gender stereotypes and places greater value on boys. Under such pressure, in their frustration and anger, girls (often unconsciously) find it less risky to take out their fears and anxieties on other girls instead of challenging the ways boys treat them, the way the media represents them, or the way the culture at large supports sexist practices.

Girlfighting traces the changes in girls' thoughts, actions and feelings from childhood into young adulthood, providing the developmental understanding and theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviewswith over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls, to distrusting and competitive young women. She argues that this familiar pathway can and should be interrupted and provides ways to move beyond girlfighting to build girl allies and to support coalitions among girls.

By allowing the voices of girls to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand and critique the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.

Although the ""coming of age"" story has been a popular film plot for decades, producers have only recently realized the commercial potential of targeting films to adolescent girls. Movies like ""Clueless"", ""Legally Blonde"" and ""Mean Girls"" have been successfully marketed to teenage girls, as have several well-known independent films. Important as both cultural indicators and catalysts, these films simultaneously demonstrate pop culture's influence on girls' films, and the ability of girls' films to affect pop culture and perceptions of girlhood. This critical survey of film and the modern girl concentrates largely on films of the last two decades, addressing key themes for girls within ""coming of age"" films, the changing (but not always improving) young feminine paradigm, and the ways these films can be powerful determinants of culture. The first chapter explores the ways in which girls' films construct, reinforce, challenge and dismantle mainstream conceptualizations of sexuality, race and power. The second chapter discusses mainstream limitations of ""coming of age"" narratives, including recycled plots and stars, treatments of parental and male authority, and adult conceptualizations of adolescence. The third chapter describes girls' experiences within these narratives through such conventions as attitude, teen fashion, music and dance, unsanctioned rites of passage, and race. The fourth chapter covers the negotiation of sex and sexuality, virginity and sexual empowerment.

Young people, it seems, are both everywhere and nowhere. The media are crowded with images of youth as deviant or fashionable, personifying a society's anxieties and hopes about its own transformation. However, theories of globalization, nationalism, and citizenship tend to focus on adult actors. Youthscapes sets youth at the heart of globalization by exploring the meanings young people have created for themselves through their engagements with popular cultures, national ideologies, and global markets. The term "youthscapes" places local youth practices within the context of ongoing shifts in national and global forces. Using this framework, the book revitalizes discussions about youth cultures and social movements, while simultaneously reflecting on the uses of youth as an academic and political category. Tracing young people's movements across physical and imagined spaces, the authors examine various cases of young people as they participate in social relations; use and invent technology; earn, spend, need, and despise money; comprise target markets while producing their own original media; and create their own understandings of citizenship. The essays examine young Thai women working in the transnational beauty industry, former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, Latino youth using graphic art in political organizing, a Sri Lankan refugee's fan relationship with Jackie Chan, and Somali high school students in the United States and Canada. Drawing on methodologies and frameworks from multiple fields, such as anthropology, sociology, and film studies, the volume is useful to those studying and teaching issues of youth culture, popular culture, globalization, social movements, education, and media. By focusing on the intersection between globalization studies and youth culture, the authors offer a vital contribution to the development of a new, interdisciplinary approach to youth culture studies.