Description:
The book is intended to help educators and researchers understand the complexities of adolescent gang members' lives, and rethink their assumptions about gang kids to see beyond stereotypes of a marginalized group in schools.
Review Quotes:
"This volume is an ethnographic study of four Mexican American male adolescents and their involvement in gangs and school. By using storytelling, the authors give meaning to the reader's and the boys' world. Recommended. All readership levels."
--CHOICE
"Debbie Smith and Kathy Whitmore have produced a remarkable book....In this age of fragmentation when the alienation of youth has reached such an extreme [they] have provided us not only with an opportunity for reflection, but also for direct action in our classrooms and in our communities to reach out and change the conditions of those who grow up disenfranchised and dispossessed."
--Denny Taylor
From the Foreword
"This is exactly the type of study that we need in the expanding and generative area of Literacy Studies. It explores populations that are under-represented in published research--Mexican American students, high school students, and gang communities, and provides much needed and topical insights into the literacy communities that these students negotiate."
--Debra Goodman
Hofstra University