Youth Fantasies is a collection of studies conducted in cross-cultural collaboration over the past ten years that theorizes “youth fantasy” as manifested through the media of TV, film, and computer games. The collection includes case studies of “X-Files” fans, the influence of computer games and the “Lara Croft” phenomenon, and the reception of western television by Tanzanian youth. This book is a much needed reconciliation between cultural studies and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and highlights why Lacan is important to note when exploring youth fantasy and interest in the media, especially in shows like “X-Files”.

Why do parents who have high levels of education tend to have children who perform better at school, stay at school longer, and end up with more desirable jobs? Researchers have evidence of how distinct factors affect educational and occupational success, but significantly less understanding of the actual mechanisms involved. This work uses new Australian data to investigate those mechanisms, examining how cultural participation and parental encouragement affect adolescent and adult stratification outcomes in advanced modern society. Crook develops theoretical accounts of the possible mechanisms linking family background with socioeconomic success and tests competing hypotheses using a synthetic approach drawing on the strengths of the two distinct traditions of social stratification research.

The current generation of adolescents are experiencing more stressful and/or negative experiences at an earlier age in their development than previous generations. The consequence is that more and more teenagers are becoming casualties of drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, and mental illness. In this book, George R. Holmes provides care-givers and parents with specific tactics to move teenagers successfully through adolescence.

The prevention of adolescent casualties is accomplished by the practice of three major prevention strategies. The first provides a clear understanding of the complex changes adolescents experience with what Holmes calls a map of the territory called adolescence. The second involves a set of interpersonal prescriptions or ways to communicate with teens that have proven usefulness. The third encourages a renaissance in schools serving teenagers by bringing technology and talent to the classroom in a new way. These strategies are designed to promote greater levels of social competency among teenagers. This, in turn, leads to fewer major emotional problems and a more successful move to adulthood. Holmes's volume is an important tool for counselors, mental health professionals, social workers, and others dealing with today's adolescents.

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.

Pleasures and Perils follows a group of young girls living on Nevis, an island society in the Eastern Caribbean. In this provocative ethnography, Debra Curtis examines their sexuality in gripping detail: why do Nevisian girls engage in sexual activity at such young ages? Where is the line between coercion and consent? How does a desire for wealth affect a girl's sexual practices?

Curtis shows that girls are often caught between conflicting discourses of Christian teachings about chastity, public health cautions about safe sex, and media enticements about consumer delights. Sexuality's contradictions are exposed: power and powerlessness, self-determination and cultural control, violence and pleasure. Pleasures and Perils illuminates the methodological and ethical issues anthropologists face when they conduct research on sex, especially among girls. The sexually explicit narratives conveyed in this book challenge not only the reader's own thoughts on sexuality but also the broader limits and possibilities of ethnography.

In recent years the factors influencing young people's transition to adulthood have become much more problematic. This edited collection of papers from Pennsylvania State University's fifth annual Family Symposium explores the main issues involved in this transition, such as the widening gap between rich and poor, downsizing, global competition, and technological change. These factors have made jobs scarce in many areas, especially inner cities, and have profoundly affected family formation, making cohabitation, delays in marriage and parenthood, and prolonged residence with parents, the life choices of many young adults. These and other issues are explored by scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, who focus on four main questions: alterations in the structure of opportunity, prior experiences in the family, prior experiences in the workplace, and career development and marriage formation.

Teachers make a difference. As someone who grew up in one of the po- est and rural areas of a poor state and ended up attending elite graduate and professional schools, I have much to credit my public school teachers. My teachers sure struggled much to teach an amazingly wide variety of students from different backgrounds, abilities, and hopes. Given that re- ity, which undoubtedly repeats itself across the United States and globe, one would think that I should be quite hesitant to criticize a system that produces countless grateful students and productive citizens. I agree. The pages that follow surely can be perceived as yet another attack on already much maligned schools that do produce impressive outcomes despite their limited resources, increased obligations, and the sustained barrage of attacks from competing interest groups. Some may even view the text as an affront to the inalienable rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit. Others surely could understand the analysis as another assault on our decentralized legal and school systems that should retain the right to balance the needs of communities, parents, schools, and students. I clearly did not intend, and do not see the ultimate result, as yet another diatribe on the manner teachers, parents and communities treat students.

This book represents the first attempt to step inside the holiday experience of young British tourists. Using ethnographic methods such as observation, open-ended interviewing and focus groups in San Antonio, Ibiza, this book reveals the ugly truth about 'how' and 'why' young Brits get involved in deviance and risk-taking when they go abroad, exploring vivid accounts of drug use, drug dealing, violence, prostitution, and injury.In contrast to existing knowledge and populist depictions, Briggs argues that the root of these behaviours is not pathological but rather it is more about how this social group have come to self validate what is expected of them in their leisure time and, as a consequence, how their attitudes are subtly guided and endorsed by the commodified social context of resorts which are only interested in making money at their expense. Exploring issues of youth culture, political economy, tourism and identity, this book will appeal to scholars in sociology, criminology, cultural studies, tourism and youth studies.

Why is it that so many children in the US and England underperform academically in comparison with people in many other industrialized countries? Despite the ongoing search for effective teaching approaches, it would appear that for many children, motivation is the central issue. Arguing that current perspectives on motivation are too narrow, this book draws upon a major five year international study that has examined the impact of factors at the level of the child, the school, the family and wider society. In providing recommendations for policy and practice, this text sets a challenge to those who seek simplistic solutions to problems of student apathy and disaffection.

Arguing that metaphor and the figurative are central to constructions and narrations of adolescence in America, this book uses a wide array of fictional and critical work, including texts by important authors such as Sylvia Plath, Joyce Carol Oates and Jeffrey Eugenides, to provide original and provocative new readings of adolescence.

For five years, Jim Walker followed the stories of four groups of young men, from their last years at an inner-city high school to their early twenties. Louts and Legends is a rich portrayal of their ways of life, their responses to school and teachers, and their experience of job-seeking, employment, unemployment, further education and training. Louts and Legends presents a unique perspective on Australian culture, showing the problems, achievements, and social context of four distinct cultural styles: the macho 'Aussie' culture of the footballers; the competitive challenge of the Greeks; the 'nice guy' friendliness of the handballers; the artistic aspirations of the stigmatised three friends. The interview and participant observation data gathered over a long period contains fresh insights on youth culture as well as moving individual stories. The findings in this book pose a challenge to educational and social policy, but they also offer realistic suggestions for teachers, youth workers, parents and for other young people.

The goal of this book is to provide teachers with the theoretical and practical information needed to meet the daily challenge of individualizing instruction for gifted and talented students with different learning styles in regular classrooms. These students spend most of their time in regular courses. Teachers and counselors often are urged to provide for the unique needs of each of these learners without being shown how such adolescents differ from each offer in their learning style traits. This is the first book devoted entirely to the topic, and it is based on a two-year study in many different nations.

This volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth showcases timely and important work of active, early-career sociologists helping to define the direction of the sub-field. Their work shares basic premises and concerns: Children and youth are active agents in their own "socialization," produce meaning and action collaboratively with peers, and struggle for agency in various social contexts. These themes shape essentially all of the contributions.

The volume is organized in two parts. Following the Introduction, six chapters make up Part One, "Empirical Studies." Two quantitative analyses lead off: first an examination of residential mobility, peer networks and life-course transitions; second, a look at adolescents' participation in a particular social movement. Two ethnographic studies follow - here the foci are "Zero Tolerance" school discipline policies, and female athletes' construction of femininity. A comparative content analysis of teen magazine advice columns, and a qualitative study of construction of "adoptive family" identities, round out Part One.

Three chapters constitute Part Two, "Innovations in Theory and Research Methods." The first offers an analysis of two films that explore children's struggle for agency and control. The next chapter develops a typology of children's participation in social movements, employing fascinating first-person narrative accounts. The final chapter demonstrates the unique ability of group interviews to capture processes through which adolescents accomplish group talk, develop shared perspectives, and construct gender identities.

Much concern has been expressed about the scandal of physical and sexual abuse by care workers of children living in residential homes but this is the first detailed study of the major problem of violence between children. Based on extensive interviews with young people as well as staff, children's own perspectives and experiences of violence are highlighted. There is important new information about different levels of violence between homes, the significance of gender and group hierarchies, and strategies to tackle violence. MARKET 1: Postgraduates and Researchers in Sociology, Social Theory, Social Work, Childhood Studies and the Sociology of Children MARKET 2: Practitioners and social workers in local government, involved in the management of care homes, and residential child care

Are teenagers in Tokyo more or less mature than teens in Brooklyn? What do Chinese teens do for weekend recreation? What do they value and care about? This volume shows that the lives of teens in prosperous and westernized Asian countries have much in common with those of American teens. Obtaining a good education is paramount, and Asian interests and tastes--in pop culture and sports, for example--are in sync with their American counterparts. In poorer and politically restricted Asian nations, teen life and opportunities are more restricted, however. Greater focus and energy is given to helping the family survive. Yet it is the ancient cultural and religious traditions in Asian life that constitute the fundamental difference between American and Asian teens. This book is an insightful and sweeping introduction to the Asian teen experience--from a typical day to participation in religious ceremonies--in 15 countries.

Teens in Latin America and the Caribbean generally face a difficult path to adulthood. Poverty and unemployment, violence, political instability, and emigration are frequently the norm in their native countries. Those from poorer families must often work as well as attend school, and opportunities for higher education and good jobs are limited. Wealthier teens, on the other hand, are sheltered from harshness and enjoy private schools, vacations abroad, and access to American consumer products. Yet family is important no matter what the class, and most of these teens share a love of parties, music, and current fashions. Latin America and the Caribbean are important regions to the United States, since large numbers of Americans can trace their roots there. Teen Life in Latin America and the Caribbean allows U.S. teens to understand the unique challenges and opportunities of teens in 15 Latin American or Caribbean countries. Photos complement the text.

Urban teens of color are often portrayed as welfare mothers, drop outs, drug addicts, and both victims and perpetrators of the many kinds of violence which can characterize life in urban areas. Although urban youth often live in contexts which include poverty, unemployment, and discrimination, they also live with the everydayness of school, friends, sex, television, music, and other elements of teenage lives. Inner City Kids explores how a group of African American, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, and Haitian adolescents make meaning of and respond to living in an inner-city community.

The book focuses on areas of particular concern to the youth, such as violence, educational opportunities, and a decaying and demoralizing urban environment characterized by trash, pollution, and abandoned houses. McIntyre's work with these teens draws upon participatory action research, which seeks to codevelop programs "with" study participants rather than "for" them.

This book innovatively re-envisions the possibilities of sexuality education. Utilizing student critiques of programs it reconfigures key debates in sexuality education including: Should pleasure be part of the curriculum? Who makes the best educators? Do students prefer single or mixed gender classes?

Youth and Family Services (YFS) are part of residential and group homes, schools, social service organizations, hospitals, and family court systems. YFS include prevention, education, positive youth development, foster care, child welfare, and treatment. As YFS has evolved advances in research have brought forth a host of promising new ideas that both complement and expand on the original underpinnings of strengths-based practice. Thriving on the Front Lines represents an articulation of these advancements. Thriving on the Front Lines explores the use of strengths-based practices with those who are "in the trenches," Youth Care Worker (YCWs). Commonly referred to as resident counselors, youth counselors, psychiatric technicians (psych techs), caseworkers, case managers, and house parents or managers, YCWs are on the "front lines," often providing services 24 hours a day. Thriving on the Front Lines is an up-to-date treatise on the pivotal role of YCWs and those who work day in and day out with youth to improve their well-being, relationships, and overall quality of life. Unique aspects of the strengths-based framework provided in Thriving on the Front Lines include: Strengths-based principles informed by five decades of research; Discussion of the importance of using real-time feedback to improve service outcomes and "how to" implement an outcome-orientation; Exploration of Positive Youth Development; Two chapters devoted entirely to strengths-based interventions; An in-depth discussion of how to improve effectiveness through deliberate practice; and, How to develop a strengths-based organizational climate.

This reference summarizes and overviews current research on adolescence in 31 countries from around the world. The volume begins with a discussion of interdisciplinary and international perspectives on adolescence, with special attention to psychological and sociological approaches. Each of the chapters that follow considers adolescence in a particular country, and the chapters are arranged alphabetically for ease of use. To foster comparative research, each chapter shares a common format, with sections on the historical and sociodemographic background of adolescence since 1945, sociocultural patterns of rites of passage, psychological and social problem behaviors, and policy matters. Each chapter concludes with a list of current references, and the volume ends with a selected bibliography and an appendix of key researchers.

From the running of boys' clubs and, catching truants to supervising troublesome kids and giving them a 'clip round the ear', the role of the police has been a recurrent theme in the debate about juvenile delinquency. Set against the context of wider developments in youth justice in Britain, this book examines the origins, key features and outcomes of police work with young people, the realities of multi-agency decision-making, and the impact on young people and their families.

During Hitler's reign, the Nazis deliberately developed and exploited a youthful image and used youth to define their political and social hierarchies. After the war, with Hitler gone but still requiring cultural exorcism, many intellectuals, authors, and filmmakers turned to these images of youth to navigate and negotiate the most difficult questions of Germany's recent, nefarious past. Focusing on youth, education, and crime allowed postwar Germans to claim one last realm of sovereignty against the Allies' own emphatic project of reeducation. Youth, reeducation, and reconstruction became important sites for the occupied to confront not only the recent past, but to negotiate the present occupation and, ultimately, direct the future of the German nation."Disciplining Germany" analyzes a variety of media, including literature, news media, intellectual history, and films, in order to argue that youth and education played a central role in Germany's coming to terms with the Nazi past. Although there has been a recently renewed interest in Germany's coming to terms with the past, this attention has largely ignored the role of youth and reeducation. This lacuna is particularly perplexing given that the Allies' reeducation project became, in many ways, a cipher for the occupational project as a whole."Disciplining Germany" opens up the discussion and points toward more general conclusions not only about youth and education as sites for wider socio-political and cultural debates but also about the complexities of occupation and the intertwining of different national cultures. In this investigation, the study attends to both 'high' and 'low' cultural text - to specialized versus popular texts - to examine how youth was mobilized across the generic spectrum.With these interdisciplinary approaches and timely interventions, "Disciplining Germany" will find a diverse readership, including upper-division and graduate courses in German studies and German history as well as those general readers interested in Nazi Germany, cultural history, film and literary studies, youth culture, American studies, and post-conflict and occupational situations.

This is the first annotated guide to recent young adult literature that is organized into specific problem areas: alienation and identity, disabilities, homosexuality, divorced and single parents, adopted and foster families, abuse, eating disorders (anorexia nervosa and bulimia), alcohol and drugs, poverty, dropouts and delinquency, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, death and dying, and stress and suicide. More than 900 recommended books published through 1993 have been annotated. Reading levels of recommended books are grades 5-8 and interest level is through grade 12.

This work addresses bibliotherapy, but is not based on it. Instead, it is built on the premise that literacy is the key to growth and understanding. Each chapter deals with a specific adolescent problem area and begins with general comments about the problem, startling information and current statistics about its gravity and pervasiveness, warning signs to look for, and suggestions of what to do and where to go for help. Each entry contains complete bibliographic information. The format and readable annotations will make it easy for young adults, parents, librarians, teachers, clergy, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and health professionals to find appropriate fiction and nonfiction books and articles on the serious problems that adolescents face today.

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.