Class Reunion: The Remaking of the American White Working Class (Critical Social Thought.)

noted Scholar Lois Weis First Visited The Town Of Freeway In Her 1990 Book, working Class Without Work. in That Book We Met The Students And Teachers Of Freeway's High School To Understand How These Working-class Folks Made Sense Of Their Lives. Now, Fifteen Years Later, Weis Has Gone Back To Freeway For class Reunion. This Time Her Focus Is On The Now Grown-up Students Who Are, For The Most Part, Still Working Class And Now Struggling To Survive The Challenges Of The Global Economy. class Reunion Is A Rare And Valuable Longitudinal Ethnographic Study That Provides Powerful, Provocative Insight Into How The Lives Of These Men And Women Have Changed Over The Last Two Decades—and What Their Prospects Might Be For The Future. BOOK COVER......Page 1 HALF-TITLE......Page 2 TITLE......Page 5 COPYRIGHT......Page 6 DEDICATION......Page 7 PREFACE......Page 8 CONTENTS......Page 9 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 14 INTRODUCTION......Page 16 Class Understandings......Page 19 Habitus......Page 26 Compositional Studies: Critical Theorizing on Social (In)justice......Page 29 Freeway......Page 31 Part I 1985......Page 36 1 A TIME OF PAIN......Page 38 Attitude Toward Institutional Authority and School Meanings......Page 39 Gender Relations/Patriarchal Relations......Page 50 Racism......Page 55 2 A TIME OF POSSIBILITY......Page 62 Work Outside the Home......Page 63 Marriage and Family......Page 68 Part II 2000......Page 82 3 WE MEET THE MEN AGAIN......Page 84 Changing Economies, Changing Gender......Page 86 4 AND THE BEAT GOES ON......Page 98 On Race and Racism......Page 114 Conclusion......Page 120 5 REVISITING A “MOMENT OF CRITIQUE”......Page 122 Judy......Page 126 Suzanne......Page 132 Carla......Page 137 Past and Present......Page 142 6 PICKING UP THE PIECES AND MOVING FORWARD......Page 150 Lorna—2000......Page 152 Chris......Page 154 Those Most Successful......Page 157 On Race and Racism: A Point of Gender Convergence......Page 162 7 BEYOND THE SHADOW OF THE MILLS......Page 174 Ideological Transformations......Page 175 Whiteness, Gender, and the Economy......Page 177 THEORETICAL CODA......Page 186 EPILOGUE......Page 192 Reflections......Page 196 NOTES......Page 200 REFERENCES......Page 210 INDEX......Page 222 White male adolescent working-class identity in Freeway is forged along three primary axes: (1) an emerging contradictory code of respect toward school knowledge and culture not in evidence in key previous studies of white working-class male youth; (2) a set of virulently patriarchal constructions of home/family life which position future wives in particular kinds of subordinate relationships; and (3) constructed notions of African Americans and Yemenites ("Arabians"), which are intensely racist and which split along distinct gender lines. "Lois Weis captures the complexities and contradictions of life in white working-class families at the turn of the 21st century. In a richly theorized but highly readable text, she illuminates how raced, classed, and gendered identities are shaped by changes in the U.S. political economy. An important book!" -Jean Anyon