Full Description
Stereotypes of economically marginalized black and brown youth focus on drugs, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood. Families, schools, nonprofit organizations, and institutions in poor urban neighborhoods emphasize preventing such "risk behaviors." In The Making of a Teenage Service Class, Ranita Ray uncovers the pernicious consequences of concentrating on risk behaviors as key to targeting poverty. Having spent three years among sixteen black and Latina/o youth, Ray shares their stories of trying to beat the odds of living in poverty. Their struggles of hunger, homelessness, and untreated illnesses are juxtaposed with the perseverance of completing homework, finding jobs, and spending long hours traveling from work to school to home. By focusing on the lives of youth who largely avoid drugs, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood, the book challenges the idea that targeting these "risk behaviors" is key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Ray compellingly demonstrates how the disproportionate emphasis on risk behaviors reinforces class and race hierarchies and diverts resources that could support marginalized youth's basic necessities and educational and occupational goals.
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. The Mobility Puzzle and Irreconcilable Choices
2. Port City Rising from the Ashes
3. Sibling Ties
4. Risky Love
5. Saved by College
6. The Making of a Teenage Service Class
7. Internalizing Uncertainty: Bad Genes, Hunger, and Homelessness
8. Uncertain Success
9. Dismantling the "At Risk" Discourse
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
