Reading and Writing Youth Culture*

This course examines contrasts in the construction of adolescence in texts written about, for, and by adolescents. We will pay particular attention to how historical and current cultural constructions of adolescence reinscribe or challenge mainstream conceptions of adolescents as members of social-political groups (as raced, classed, and gendered, for example). We will focus on one site of youth culture, the school, to examine how various school practices (such as athletics, school dances, clubs, pedagogical approaches) reinforce or challenge dominant notions of adolescence.