The Making of a Teenage Service Class : Poverty and Mobility in an American City

Winner of the 2018 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems Winner of the 2020 Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Pacific Sociological Association Honorable Mention, 2019 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award from the American Sociological Association, Section on Race, Gender, and Class Finalist, 2020. Bourdieu Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association, Section on the Sociology of Education In The Making of a Teenage Service Class, Ranita Ray uncovers the pernicious consequences of focusing on risk behaviors 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 traveling between work, school, and home disrupted their dreams of upward mobility. While families, schools, nonprofit organizations, academics, and policy makers stress risk behaviors 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. "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." ... Provided by publisher The mobility puzzle and irreconcilable choices Port city rising from the ashes Sibling ties Risky love Saved by college The making of a teenage service class Internalizing uncertainty: bad genes, hunger, and homelessness Uncertain success Dismantling the construction of "At risk" discourse. Ray,Ranita.,The,Making,of,a,Teenage,Service,Class,:,Poverty,and,Mobility,in,an,American,City,University,of,California,Press,2017.,ProQuest,Ebook,Central,http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/cuhk-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4811733. Created,from,cuhk-ebooks,on,2022-11-17,07:48:01.