An avalanche of recent newspapers, weekly newsmagazines, scholarly journals, and academic books has helped to spark a heated debate by publishing warnings of a "boy crisis" in which male students at all academic levels have begun falling behind their female peers. In Learning the Hard Way, Edward W. Morris explores and analyzes detailed ethnographic data on this purported gender gap between boys and girls in educational achievement at two low-income high schools-one rural and predominantly white, the other urban and mostly African American. Crucial questions arose from his study of gender at these two schools. Why did boys tend to show less interest in and more defiance toward school? Why did girls significantly outperform boys at both schools? Why did people at the schools still describe boys as especially "smart"? Morris examines these questions and, in the process, illuminates connections of gender to race, class, and place. This book is not simply about the educational troubles of boys, but the troubled and complex experience of gender in school. It reveals how particular race, class, and geographical experiences shape masculinity and femininity in ways that affect academic performance. His findings add a new perspective to the "gender gap" in achievement.

Although it is commonly believed that deafness and disability limits a person in a variety of ways, Valuing Deaf Worlds in Urban India describes the two as a source of value in postcolonial India. Michele Friedner argues that the experiences of deaf people offer an important portrayal of contemporary self-making and sociality under new regimes of labor and economy in India. Friedner contends that deafness actually becomes a source of value for deaf Indians as they interact with nongovernmental organizations, with employers in the global information technology sector, and with the state. In contrast to previous political economic moments, deaf Indians increasingly depend less on the state for education and employment, and instead turn to novel and sometimes surprising spaces such as NGOs, multinational corporations, multilevel marketing businesses, and churches that attract deaf congregants. They also gravitate towards each other. Their social practices may be invisible to outsiders because neither the state nor their families have recognized Indian Sign Language as legitimate, but deaf Indians collectively learn sign language, which they use among themselves, and they also learn the importance of working within the structures of their communities to maximise their opportunities. Valuing Deaf Worlds in Urban India analyses how diverse deaf people become oriented toward each other and disoriented from their families and other kinship networks. More broadly, this book explores how deafness, deaf sociality, and sign language relate to contemporary society.

Through an examination of interviews provided by 100 children of refugees in Cyprus, born after their family's displacement, Hadjiyanni illustrates the formation of a refugee consciousness, an identity adopted by many children who never experienced the actual displacement of their family. Focusing on the process by which a child born into a refugee family develops a refugee identity, the book identifies nine dimensions that inform this consciousness. Establishing the family as the primary transmitter of the refugee identity and the child as its constructor, the author points to the power of homeplace in forming and supporting such an identity. The book challenges the notion that refugee consciousness is a separate identity and a crisis by reinterpreting it as a resistance to adversity. Shedding new light on what it means to be a refugee, this work is a welcome addition to the field.

Beginning with a discussion of the meaning of the term refugee, and how it has been adopted by the children of some refugees in Cyprus, the author moves to an examination of the meaning of past and present to the formation of a refugee consciousness. She then looks to the causes of such identity formation, focusing on the transference of identity from parent to child, and the effects of past loss on children who have not actually experienced displacement. Housing issues are also examined as a contributing factor, as refugee housing is typically distinct, and constrained, compared to housing for native citizens of a community. The author concludes her work with a discussion of the implications of the Cyprus example for both the future and for general refugee studies.

Taking a critical perspective, this book rethinks public space in the context of contemporary global health and economic crises, as well as technological, political and cultural change. In order to do so, Ali Madanipour brings together two often unrelated discourses: public space and social inclusion, interrogating the potential for public spaces to contribute to inclusive social practices. Organized in two parts, the book first highlights various common meanings and philosophical concepts of public space, examining them in their constitution and application. Madanipour runs these concepts past the test of social practice, through the economic, political and cultural dimensions of social exclusion and inclusion. Chapters further analyse public space in its different forms: physical, institutional and technological, offering a wide-ranging and thought-provoking take on the concept. Timely and innovative, this book will be an invigorating read for urban studies, planning and human geography scholars, particularly those focusing on public space, social inclusion and urban processes.

When Michael Bloomberg handed over the city to Bill de Blasio, New York and the country were experiencing record levels of income inequality. De Blasio was the first progressive elected to City Hall in twenty years. Invoking Fiorello La Guardia's name, he pledged to improve the lives of those marginalized by poverty and prejudice. Unlike La Guardia, de Blasio did not have allies in Washington like President Franklin D. Roosevelt who could effectively support his progressive agenda. As de Blasio approached the end of his first term, the situation worsened, with Donald Trump in the White House and a Republican-controlled Congress determined to further reduce social programs that help the needy. As a result, de Blasio's mayoralty is an illuminating case study of what mayors can and cannot do on their own to address economic and social inequality. As the Democratic Party attempts to reassemble a viable political coalition that cuts across boundaries of race, class and gender, de Blasio's efforts to redefine priorities in America's largest city is instructive. Joseph P. Viteritti's The Pragmatist is the first in-depth look at de Blasioboth the man himself and his policies in crucial areas such as housing, homelessness, education, and criminal justice. It is a test case for the viability of progressivism itself. Along the way, Viteritti introduces the reader to every NYC mayor since La Guardia. He covers progressives who breathed life into the "soul of the city" before the devastating fiscal crisis of 1975 put it on the brink of bankruptcy, and those post-fiscal crisis chief executives who served during times of limiting austerity. This engaging story of the rise, fall, and rebirth of progressivism in America's major urban center demonstrates that the road to progress has been a longand continuingjourney.

Considering Class: Theory, Culture and Media in the 21st Century offers the reader international and interdisciplinary perspectives on the importance of class analysis in the 21st century. Political economists, sociologists, educationalists, ethnographers, cultural and media analysts combine to provide a multi-dimensional account of current class dynamics. The crisis consists precisely in the gap between the objective reality and efficacy of class forces shaping international politics and the relative paucity of class-consciousness at a popular level and appreciation of class as an explanatory optic at a theoretical level. This important book shows why the process of reconstructing class consciousness must also take place on the ground of cultural and subjective formation where everyday values, habits and media practices are in play. Contributors are: Anita Biressi, Joseph Choonara, Maurizio Donato, Danny Dorling, Mark Gibson, Craig Haslop, Dave Hill, Peter Jakobsson, Marina Kabat, Holly Lewis, Catherine Lumby, Lisa Mckenzie, Tony Moore, Adrian Murray, Deirdre O'Neill, Jonathan Pratschke, Michael Seltzer, Eduardo Sartelli, Fredrik Stiernstedt, Roberto Taddeo, Mike Wayne, Milly Williamson, Ferruh Yilmaz.

In spite of America's identity as a liberal democracy, the vile act of lynching happened frequently in the Southern United States over the course of the nation's history. Indeed, lynchings were very public events, and were even advertised in newspapers, begging the question of how such a brazen disregard for the law could have occurred so freely and openly. Liberalizing Lynching: Building a New Racialized State seeks to explain the seemingly paradoxical relationship between the American liberal regime and the illiberal act of lynching. Drawing on legal cases, congressional documents, presidential correspondence, and newspaper reports, Daniel Kato explores the federal government's pattern of non-intervention regarding lynchings of African Americans from the late nineteenth century through the 1960s. Although popular belief holds that the federal government was unable to address racial violence in the South, this book argues that the actions and decisions of the federal government from the 1870s through the 1960s reveal that federal inaction was not primarily a consequence of institutional or legal incapacities, but rather a decision that was supported and maintained by all three branches of the federal government. Inaction stemmed from the decision not to intervene, not the powerlessness of the federal government. To cement his argument, Kato develops the theory of constitutional anarchy, which crystallizes the ways in which federal government had the capacity to intervene, yet relinquished its responsibility while nonetheless maintaining authority. A bold challenge to conventional knowledge about lynching, Liberalizing Lynching will serve as a useful tool for students and scholars of political science, legal history, and African American studies.

Television and film not only entertain and reflect social change, they may also participate and influence these changes -- the recent success of The Full Monty and Billy Elliot show popular British comedy based on such painful social transformations.

Looking at Class brings together film and television practitioners with academic students of cultural and economic change to examine the media representation of the British working class in the twentieth century -- a time of decline for the manual working class when a complex service-based economy emerged. The book covers a large range of genres from documentaries to soaps and shows that complex cultural transitions can be communicated clearly in prose as well as in screen drama.

Religion is a racialized category, even when race is not explicitly mentioned. Modern Religion, Modern Race argues that because the concepts of religion and race are rooted in the post-Enlightenment project of rethinking what it means to be human, we cannot simply will ourselves to stop using these categories. Only by acknowledging that religion is already racialized can we begin to understand how the two concepts are intertwined and how they operate in our modern world. It has become commonplace to argue that the category religion is not universal, or even very old, but is a product of Europe's Enlightenment modernization. Equally commonplace is the argument that religion is not an innocent category of analysis, but is implicated in colonial regimes of control and as such plays a role in Europe's process of identity construction of non-European "others." Current debates about race follow an eerily similar trajectory: race is not an ancient but a modern construction. It is part of the project of colonialism, and race discourse forms one of the cornerstones of modern European identity-making. Vial focuses on the development of these ideas in the late-18th and early-19th centuries in Germany. By examining the theories of Kant, Herder, and Schleiermacher, among others, Vial uncovers co-constitutive nature of race and religion, and how the two concepts are used today to make sense of the world. He shows that while we disdain the racist language of some of the founders of the religious studies discipline, our continued use of their theories leads us, unwittingly, to reiterate many of the same distinctions and hierarchies. Although it may not be time to abandon the very category of religion, with all its attendant baggage, Modern Religion, Modern Race calls for us to critically examine that baggage, and the way in which religion has always carried within it race.

Gecekondu settlements-or shanty towns-in large Turkish cities are mostly populated by low-income families, many of which have migrated from the villages of Central Anatolia. The rise of the Islamist party AKP in the 1990s and 2000s had a large impact on how these gecekondus are examined, and how they are perceived to reflect key issues at play in Turkish society: welfare, local identity, religious communities and the rise of civil society. Having lived in one of these neighbourhoods in Ankara, Burcu ?enturk's book sheds light on the experience of gecekondu dwelling in Turkey. By focusing on this aspect, she brings to the fore issues such as urbanisation, modernisation and development, as well as examining the impact these kinds of phenomena have on generation gaps and the role of women in Turkish society. By using the framework of the experience of three generations of gecekondu dwellers, ?enturk is able to chart the emergence, development and the gradual breakdown of social relations, and how the dynamics of these have changed during the course of the latter half of the twentieth century."

Although New England boarding schools have been educating America's elite for four generations, they, along with their privileged students, rarely have been the subject of study. Living in a senior boys' dorm at a co-ed school, Sarah Chase was able to witness the inner workings of student culture and the dynamics of their peer groups. In an environment of ivy-covered buildings, institutional goals of excellence and aspirations to Ivy League colleges, the boys and girls acted extremely masculine or feminine. While girls typically worked themselves into a state of sleep deprivation and despair during exam period, the boys remained seemingly unconcerned and relaxed. As much as the girls felt pressure to be "cute" and "perfect," the boys felt pressure to be "bad ass" and the "best at everything." Tellingly, the boys thought that "it would suck" to be a girl, while over one third of the girls wanted to be male if given the chance.
From her vantage point of sitting in the back of the football and field hockey buses, attending prom and senior pranks, and listening to how students described their academic and social pressures, competition, rumors, backstabbing, sex, and partying, Chase discovered that these boys and girls shared similar values, needs and desires despite their highly gendered behavior. The large class, ethnic and individual differences in how the students perform their genders reveal the importance of culture in development and the power of individual agency. This book examines the price of privilege and uncovers how student culture reflects and perpetuates society and institutional power structures and gender ideologies.

The American dream of a single family home on its own lot is still strong, but a different dream of living and prospering in a major city is beginning to take hold. After decades of abandonment by the middle class, a detectable number of people are moving into urban downtown areas. The Intown Living phenomenon is generally powered by people under the age of 40 who are seeking more stimulation than offered in the typical subdivision lifestyle. This book encourages cities and the private development community to team up and expand central city housing opportunities and illustrates the upside of Intown Living to those considering moving to a city. This unique work provides current data on who is buying intown, at what prices, and in what size apartments and condominiums. This piece serves as a firsthand account of what is happening in today's cities and why. It gives details about the financial and programmatic incentives needed to make Intown Living happen, and why they are necessary. Includes 10 detailed maps and an in-depth look at the cities of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, B.C.

Slavery and the University is the first edited collection of scholarly essays devoted solely to the histories and legacies of this subject on North American campuses and in their Atlantic contexts. Gathering together contributions from scholars, activists, and administrators, the volume combines two broad bodies of work: (1) historically based interdisciplinary research on the presence of slavery at higher education institutions in terms of the development of proslavery and antislavery thought and the use of slave labor; and (2) analysis on the ways in which the legacies of slavery in institutions of higher education continued in the post-Civil War era to the present day. The collection features broadly themed essays on issues of religion, economy, and the regional slave trade of the Caribbean. It also includes case studies of slavery's influence on specific institutions, such as Princeton University, Harvard University, Oberlin College, Emory University, and the University of Alabama. Though the roots of Slavery and the University stem from a 2011 conference at Emory University, the collection extends outward to incorporate recent findings. As such, it offers a roadmap to one of the most exciting developments in the field of U.S. slavery studies and to ways of thinking about racial diversity in the history and current practices of higher education.

This multidisciplinary study of Scientology examines the organization and the controversies around it through the lens of popular culture, referencing movies, television, print, and the Internet-an unusual perspective that will engage a wide range of readers and researchers. For more than 60 years, Scientology has claimed alternative religious status with a significant number of followers, despite its portrayals in popular culture domains as being bizarre. What are the reasons for the vital connections between Scientology and popular culture that help to maintain or challenge it as an influential belief system? This book is the first academic treatment of Scientology that examines the movement in a popular-culture context from the perspective of several Western countries. It documents how the attention paid to Scientology by high-profile celebrities and its mention in movies, television, and print as well as on the Internet results in millions of people being aware of the organization-to the religious organization's benefit and detriment. The book leads with a background on Scientology and a discussion of science fiction concepts, pulps, and movies. The next section examines Scientology's ongoing relationship with the Hollywood elite, including the group's use of celebrities in its drug rehabilitation program, and explores movies and television shows that contain Scientology themes or comedic references. Readers will learn about how the Internet and the mainstream media of the United States as well as of Australia, Germany, and the UK have regarded Scientology. The final section investigates the music and art of Scientology. Discusses Scientology within the framework of popular culture, which is how most people outside the religion come in contact with it Approaches the study of Scientology from multiple viewpoints, enabling readers to have an informed, multicultural perspective on the religious group's beliefs and practices from which to form their own opinion Presents information about Scientology derived from one of the largest university archive collections on the subject worldwide, with a number of documents never before having been referenced in scholarship

The United States has long thought of itself as exceptional-a nation destined to lead the world into a bright and glorious future. These ideas go back to the Puritan belief that Massachusetts would be a "city on a hill," and in time that image came to define the United States and the American mentality. But what is at the root of these convictions? John Howard Smith's A Dream of the Judgment Day explores the origins of beliefs about the biblical end of the world as Americans have come to understand them, and how these beliefs led to a conception of the United States as an exceptional nation with a unique destiny to fulfill. However, these beliefs implicitly and explicitly excluded African Americans and American Indians because they didn't fit white Anglo-Saxon ideals. While these groups were influenced by these Christian ideas, their exclusion meant they had to craft their own versions of millenarian beliefs. Women and other marginalized groups also played a far larger role than usually acknowledged in this phenomenon, greatly influencing the developing notion of the United States as the "redeemer nation." Smith's comprehensive history of eschatological thought in early America encompasses traditional and non-traditional Christian beliefs in the end of the world. It reveals how millennialism and apocalypticism played a role in destructive and racist beliefs like "Manifest Destiny," while at the same time influencing the foundational idea of the United States as an "elect nation." Featuring a broadly diverse cast of historical figures, A Dream of the Judgment Day synthesizes more than forty years of scholarship into a compelling and challenging portrait of early America.

In this study of Kuzguncuk, known as one of Istanbul's historically most tolerant, multiethnic neighborhoods, Amy Mills is animated by a single question: what does it mean to live in a place that once was--but no longer is--ethnically and religiously diverse?
"Turkification" drove out most of Kuzguncuk's minority Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in the mid-twentieth century, but they left behind potent vestiges of their presence in the cityscape. Mills analyzes these places in a street-by-street ethnographic tour. She looks at how memory is conveyed and contested in Kuzguncuk's built environment, whether through the popular television programs filmed on location there or in the cross-class alliance that sprung up to advocate the preservation of an old market garden. Overall, she finds that the neighborhood's landscape not only connotes feelings of "belonging and familiarity" connected to a "narrative of historic multiethnic harmony" but also makes these ideas appear to be uncontestably real, or true. The resulting nostalgia bolsters a version of Turkish nationalism that seems cosmopolitan and benign. This study of memories of interethnic relationships in a local place examines why the cultural memory of tolerance has become so popular and raises questions regarding the nature and meaning of cosmopolitanism in the contemporary Middle East.
A major contribution to urban studies, human geography, and Middle East studies, "Streets of Memory "is imbued with a sense of genuine connection to Istanbul and the people who live there.

This collection of eleven original essays interrogates the concept of freedom and recenters our understanding of the process of emancipation. Who defined freedom, and what did it mean to nineteenth-century African Americans, both during and after slavery? Some of the essays disrupt the traditional story and time-frame of emancipation.