The Making of a Teenage Service Class: Poverty and Mobility in an American City - Ray, Ranita

Clean, tight, unmarked; absolute minimal wear; appears unread; This book uncovers the pernicious consequences of focusing on "risk behaviours" such as drug use, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood as the key to ameliorating poverty. Ray recounts the three years she spent with sixteen poor black and brown youth, documenting their struggles to balance school and work while keeping commitments to family, friends, and lovers. Hunger, homelessness, untreated illnesses, and long hours spent travelling between work, school, and home disrupted their dreams of upward mobility. While families, schools, nonprofit organizations, academics, and policy makers stress risk behaviours in their efforts to end the cycle of poverty, Ray argues that this strategy reinforces class and racial hierarchies and diverts resources that could better support marginalized youth's efforts to reach their educational and occupational goals. 
Near Fine
Soft cover
University of California Press
1st Edition
2017
Oakland, CA