Movie Analysis

Movie Analysis
I It’s not only in newspaper headlines —it’s even on magazine covers. TIME , U.S. News & World Report and even Scientific American Mind have all run cover stories proclaiming that an incompletely developed brain accounts for the emotional problems and irrespon – sible behavior of teenagers. The assertion is driven by various stud – ies of brain activity and anatomy in teens. Imaging studies some – times show, for example, that teens and adults use their brains some – what differently when performing certain tasks. As a longtime researcher in psychology and a sometime teacher of courses on research methods and statistics, I have become in – creasingly concerned about how such studies are being interpreted. Although imaging technology has shed interesting new light on brain activity, it is dangerous to presume that snapshots of activity in certain regions of the brain necessarily provide useful information about the causes of thought, feeling and behavior. w w w . s c i a m m i n d . c o m S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N M I N D 57 Myth The of the We blame teen turmoil on immature brains. But did the brains cause the turmoil, or did the turmoil shape the brains? Teen Brain By Robert Epstein P E T E R D A Z E L E Y G e t t y I m a g e s 58 S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N M I N D A p r i l / M a y 2 0 0 7 This fact is true in part because we know that an individual’s genes and environmental histo – ry —and even his or her own behavior —mold the brain over time. There is clear evidence that any unique features that may exist in the brains of teens —to the limited extent that such features exist —are the result of social influences rather than the cause of teen turmoil. As you will see, a careful look at relevant data shows that the teen brain we read about in the headlines —the imma – ture brain that supposedly causes teen prob – lems —is nothing less than a myth. Cultural Considerations The teen brain fits conveniently into a larger myth, namely, that teens are inherently incompe – tent and irresponsible. Psychologist G. Stanley Hall launched this myth in 1904 with the publi – cation of his landmark two-volume book Ado – lescence . Hall was misled both by the turmoil of his times and by a popular theory from biology that later proved faulty. He witnessed an explod – ing industrial revolution and massive immigra – tion that put hundreds of thousands of young people onto the streets of America’s burgeoning cities. Hall never looked beyond those streets in formulating his theories about teens, in part be – cause he believed in “recapitulation” —a theory from biology that asserted that individual devel – opment (ontogeny) mimicked evolutionary devel – opment (phylogeny). To Hall, adolescence was the necessary and inevitable reenactment of a “savage, pigmoid” stage of human evolution. By the 1930s the recapitulation theory was com – pletely discredited in biology, but psychologists and the general public never got the message. Many still believe, consistent with Hall’s asser – tion, that teen turmoil is an inevitable part of human development. Today teens in the U.S. and some other West – ernized nations do display some signs of distress. The peak age for arrest in the U.S. for most crimes has long been 18; for some crimes, such as arson, the peak comes much earlier. On average, Amer – ican parents and teens tend to be in conflict with one another 20 times a month —an extremely high figure indicative of great pain on both sides. An extensive study conducted in 2004 suggests that 18 is the peak age for depression among people 18 and older in this country. Drug use by teens, both legal and illegal, is clearly a problem here, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among U.S. teens. Prompted by a rash of deadly school shootings over the past decade, many American high schools now resemble prisons, with guards, metal detectors and video monitoring systems, and the high school dropout rate is nearly 50 per – cent among minorities in large U.S. cities. But are such problems truly inevitable? If the turmoil-generating “teen brain” were a universal developmental phenomenon, we would presum – ably find turmoil of this kind around the world. Do we? In 1991 anthropologist Alice Schlegel of the University of Arizona and psychologist Herbert Barry III of the University of Pittsburgh reviewed research on teens in 186 preindustrial societies. A mong the important conclusions they drew about these societies: about 60 percent had no word for “adolescence,” teens spent al most all their time with adults, teens showed almost no sig ns of psychopatholog y, and antisocial b e h av ior i n you n g m a l e s wa s c o mpl e t e ly absent in more than half these cultu res and FA ST FAC TS Troubled Teens 1 >> Various imaging studies of brain activity and anatomy find that teens and adults use their brains somewhat differently when performing certain tasks. These studies are said to support the idea that an immature “teen brain” ac – counts for teen mood and behavior problems. 2 >> But, the author argues, snapshots of brain activity do not necessarily identify the causes of such problems. Culture, nutrition and even the teen’s own behavior all affect brain development. A variety of research in several fields sug – gest that teen turmoil is caused by cultural factors, not by a faulty brain. 3 >> Anthropological research reveals that teens in many cultures experience no turmoil whatsoever and that teen problems begin to appear only after Western schooling, movies and television are introduced. 4 >> Teens have the potential to perform in exemplary ways, the author says, but we hold them back by infantilizing them and trapping them in the frivolous world of teen culture. If the “teen brain” were a universal phenomenon, we would find teen turmoil around the world. ( ) w w w . s c i a m m i n d . c o m S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N M I N D 59 extremely mild in cultures in which it did occur. Even more significant, a series of long-term studies set in motion in the 1980s by anthropolo – gists Beatrice Whiting and John Whiting of Har – vard University suggests that teen trouble begins to appear in other cultures soon after the intro – duction of certain Western influences, especially Western-style schooling, television programs and movies. Delinquency was not an issue among the Inuit people of Victoria Island, Canada, for ex – ample, until T V arrived in 1980. By 1988 the Inuit had created their first permanent police sta – tion to try to cope with the new problem. Consistent with these modern observations, many h istorians note t hat t h roug h most of recorded human history the teen years were a relatively peaceful time of transition to adult – hood. Teens were not trying to break away from adults ; rather they were learning to become adults. Some historians, such as Hugh Cunning – ham of the University of Kent in England and Marc Kleijwegt of the University of Wisconsin– Madison, author of Ancient Youth: The Ambi – guity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society (J. C. Gieben, 1991), suggest that the tumultuous period we call ado – lescence is a very recent phenomenon—not much more than a century old. My own recent research, viewed in combina – tion with many other studies from anthropology, psychology, sociology, history and other disci – plines, suggests the turmoil we see among teens in the U.S. is the result of what I call “artificial extension of childhood” past puberty. Over the past century, we have increasingly infantilized our young, treating older and older people as chil – dren while also isolating them from adults. Laws have restricted their behavior [ see box on next page ]. Surveys I have conducted show that teens in the U.S. are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as are mainstream adults, twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and even twice as many restrictions as incarcer – ated felons. And research I conducted with Diane Dumas as part of her dissertation research at the California School of Professional Psychology shows a positive correlation between the extent to which teens are infantilized and the extent to which they display signs of psychopathology. The headlines notwithstanding, there is no question that teen turbulence is not inevitable. It is a creation of modern culture, pure and sim – C A T H E R I N E L E D N E R G e t t y I m a g e s In many Western cultures, teens socialize almost exclusively with other teens. ple —and so, it would appear, is the brain of the troubled teen. Dissecting Brain Studies A variety of recent research —most of it con- ducted using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology —is said to show the existence of a teen brain. Studies by Beatriz Luna of the depart- ment of psychiatry at the University of Pitts- burgh, for example, are said to show that teens use prefrontal cortical resources differently than adults do. Susan F. Tapert of the University of California, San Diego, found that for certain memory tasks, teens use smaller areas of the cor- tex than adults do. An electroencephalogram (EEG) study by Irwin Feinberg and his colleagues at the University of California, Davis, shows that delta-wave activity during sleep declines in the early teen years. Jay Giedd of the National Insti- tute of Mental Health and other researchers sug- gest that the decline in delta-wave activity might be related to synaptic pruning —a reduction in the number of interconnections among neu- rons —that occurs during the teen years. This work seems to support the idea of the teen brain we see in the headlines until we realize two things. First, most of the brain changes that are observed during the teen years lie on a con- tinuum of changes that take place over much of our lives. For example, a 1993 study by Jésus Pujol and his colleagues at the Autonomous Uni- versity of Barcelona looked at changes in the cor- pus callosum —a massive structure that connects the two sides of the brain —over a two-year pe- riod with individuals between 11 and 61 years old. They found that although the rate of growth declined as people aged, this structure still grew by about 4 percent each year in people in their 40s (compared with a growth rate of 29 percent in their youngest subjects). Other studies, con- ducted by researchers such as Elizabeth Sowell of the University of California, Los Angeles, show that gray matter in the brain continues to disap- pear from childhood well into adulthood. Second, I have not been able to find even a single study that establishes a causal relation between the properties of the brain being exam- ined and the problems we see in teens. By their very nature, imaging studies are correlational, showing simply that activit y in the brain is associated with certain behavior or emotion. As we learn in elementary statistics courses, 60 S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N M I N D A p r i l / M a y 2 0 0 7 S O U R C E :T H E C A S E A G A I N S T A D O L E S C E N C E , B Y R O B E R T E P S T E I N ( Q U I L L D R I V E R B O O K S , 2 0 0 7 ) Rebels with a Cause Laws restricting the behavior of young people (un- der age 18) have grown rapidly in the past century, according to a survey by the author. He found that U.S. teens have 10 times as many restrictions as adults, twice as many as active – duty U.S. ma- rines and twice as many as incarcerated felons. 160 140 120 100 8060 40 20 0 Laws Restricting Teen Behavior 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 Year l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l correlation does not even imply causation. In that sense, no imaging study could possibly identify the brain as a causal agent, no matter what areas of the brain were being observed.Is it ever legitimate to say that human behav – ior is caused by brain anatomy or activity? [See “Brain Scans Go Legal,” by Scott T. Grafton, Walter P. Sinnott-Armstrong, Suzanne I. Gazza – niga and M ichael S. Gazzaniga; Scie n t ific A m e r ic a n M i n d , December 20 06 / Januar y 2007.] In his 1998 book Blaming the Brain, neu – roscientist Elliot Valenstein deftly points out that we make a serious error of logic when we blame almost any behavior on the brain —especially when drawing conclusions from brain-scanning studies. Without doubt, all behavior and emotion must somehow be reflected (or “encoded”) in brain structure and activity; if someone is impul – sive or lethargic or depressed, for example, his or her brain must be wired to reflect those behav – iors. But that wiring (speaking loosely) is not nec – essarily the cause of the behavior or emotion that we see. Considerable research shows that a person’s emotions and behavior continuously change brain anatomy and physiology. Stress creates hypersen – sitivity in dopamine-producing neurons that per – sists even after they are removed from the brain. Enriched environments produce more neuronal connections. For that matter, meditation, diet, ex – ercise, studying and virtually all other activities alter the brain, and a new study shows that smok – ing produces brain changes similar to those pro – duced in animals given heroin, cocaine or other addictive drugs. So if teens are in turmoil, we will necessarily find some corresponding chemical, electrical or anatomical properties in the brain. But did the brain cause the turmoil, or did the turmoil alter the brain? Or did some other factors —such as the way our culture treats its teens —cause both the turmoil and the corresponding brain properties? w w w . s c i a m m i n d . c o m S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N M I N D 61 E R I K D R E Y E R G e t t y I m a g e s Young people have extraordinary potential that is often not expressed because teens are infantilized and isolated from adults. (The Author) ROBERT EPSTEIN is a contributing editor for Scientific American Mind and the former editor in chief of Psychology Today. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University and is a longtime researcher and professor. His latest book is called The Case against Adolescence: Redis – covering the Adult in Every Teen (Quill Driver Books, 2007) . More informa – tion is at www.thecaseagainstadolescence.com. Studies of intelligence, perception and memory show that teens are in many ways superior to adults . ( ) 62 S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N M I N D A p r i l / M a y 2 0 0 7 Unfortunately, news reports —and even the re – searchers themselves —often get carried away when interpreting brain studies. For instance, a 2004 study conducted by James Bjork and his col – leagues at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, at Stanford University and at the Catholic University of America was said in various media reports to have identified the biological roots of teen laziness. In the actual study, 12 young people (ages 12 to 17) and 12 somewhat older people (ages 22 to 28) were monitored with an MRI device while performing a simple task that could earn them money. They were told to press a button after a short anticipation period (about two seconds) following the brief display of a symbol on a small mirror in front of their eyes. Some symbols indicated that pressing the button would earn money, whereas others indicated that failing to respond would cost money. After the anticipation period, subjects had 0.25 second to react, after which time information was displayed to let them know whether they had won or lost. Areas of the brain that are believed to be in – volved in motivation were scanned during this session. Teens and adults were found to perform equally well on the task, and brain activity dif – fered somewhat in the two groups —at least dur – ing the anticipation period and when $5 (the maximum amount that could be earned) was on the line. Specifically, on those high-payment tri – als the average activity of neurons in the right nucleus accumbens —but not in other areas that were being monitored —was higher for adults than for teens. Because brain activity in the two groups did not differ in other brain areas or un – der other payment conditions, the researchers drew a very modest conclusion in their article: “These data indicate qualitative similarities over – all in the brain regions recruited by incentive pro – cessing in healthy adolescents and adults.” But according to the Long Island, N.Y., news – paper Newsday, this study identified a “biological reason for teen laziness.” Even more disturbing, lead author James Bjork said that his study “tells us that teenagers love stuff, but aren’t as willing to get off the couch to get it as adults are.” In fact, the study supports neither statement. If you truly wanted to know something about the brains of lazy teens, at the very least you would have to have some lazy teens in your study. None were identified as such in the Bjork study. Then you would have to compare the brains of those teens with the brains of industrious teens, as well A N D R E W R U L L S T A D T h e A m e s T r i b u n e / A P P h o t o (t o p ) ; B I L L P U G L I A N O G e t t y I m a g e s N e w s (b o t t o m ) Elected achievers : Sam Juhl, 18, mayor of Roland, Iowa and Michael Sessions, now 19, mayor of Hills – dale, Mich. w w w . s c i a m m i n d . c o m S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N M I N D 6 3 as with the brains of both lazy and industrious adults. Most likely, you would then end up find – ing out how, on average, the brains in these four groups differed from one another. But even this type of analysis would not allow you to conclude that some teens are lazy “because” they have faulty brains. To find out why certain teens or certain adults are lazy (and, perforce, why they have brains that reflect their lazy tendencies), you would still have to look at genetic and environ – mental factors. A brain-scanning study can shed no light. Valenstein blames the pharmaceutical indus – try for setting the stage for overinterpreting the results of brain studies such as Bjork’s. The drug companies have a strong incentive to convince public policymakers, researchers, media profes – sionals and the general public that faulty brains underlie all our problems —and, of course, that pharmaceuticals can fix those problems. Re – searchers, in turn, have a strong incentive to con – vince the public and various funding agencies that their research helps to “explain” important social phenomena. The Truth about Teens If teen chaos is not inevitable, and if such dif – ficulty cannot legitimately be blamed on a faulty brain, just what is the truth about teens? The truth is that they are extraordinarily competent, even if they do not normally express that compe – tence. Research I conducted with Dumas shows, for example, that teens are as competent or virtu – ally as competent as adults across a wide range of adult abilities. And long-standing studies of in – telligence, perceptual abilities and memory func – tion show that teens are in many instances far superior to adults. Visual acuity, for example, peaks around the time of puberty. “Incidental memory” —the kind of memory that occurs automatically, without any mnemonic effort, peaks at about age 12 and declines through life. By the time we are in our 60s, we remember relatively little “incidentally,” which is one reason many older people have trou – ble mastering new technologies. In the 1940s pioneering intelligence researchers J. C. Raven and David Wechsler, relying on radically differ – ent kinds of intelligence tests, each showed that raw scores on intelligence tests peak between ages 13 and 15 and decline after that throughout life. Although verbal expertise and some forms of judgment can remain strong throughout life, the extraordinary cognitive abilities of teens, and especially their ability to learn new things rap – idly, is beyond question. And whereas brain size is not necessarily a good indication of processing ability, it is notable that recent scanning data col – lected by Eric Courchesne and his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, show that brain volume peaks at about age 14. By the time we are 70 years old, our brain has shrunk to the size it had been when we were about three. Findings of this kind make ample sense when you think about teenagers from an evolutionary perspective. Mammals bear their young shortly after puberty, and until very recently so have members of our species, Homo sapiens. No mat – ter how they appear or perform, teens must be incredibly capable, or it is doubtful the human race could even exist. Today, with teens trapped in the frivolous world of peer culture, they learn virtually every – thing they know from one another rather than from the people they are about to become. Isolated from adults and wrongly treated like children, it is no wonder that some teens behave, by adult stan – dards, recklessly or irresponsibly. Almost without exception, the reckless and irresponsible behavior we see is the teen’s way of declaring his or her adulthood or, through pregnancy or the commis – sion of serious crime, of instantly becoming an adult under the law. Fortunately, we also know from extensive research both in the U.S. and else – where that when we treat teens like adults, they almost immediately rise to the challenge. We need to replace the myth of the immature teen brain with a frank look at capable and savvy teens in history, at teens in other cultures and at the truly extraordinary potential of our own young people today. M (Further Reading) ◆ Blaming the Brain: The Truth about Drugs and Mental Health. Elliot S. Valenstein. Free Press, 1998. ◆ The End of Adolescence. Philip Graham. Oxford University Press, 2004. When we treat teens like adults, they almost immediately rise to the challenge . ( )
Movie Analysis
GUYLAND The Perilous World Where Boys· Become Men MICHAEL KIMMEL • “A,RPER An Imprint ofHarper Collins Publishers www.harpcrcollins.com / 0(Q­ /GJ- 797J~ J(~0 ;Loo/? GUYLAND. Copyright © 2008 by MichaelKimmel. Allrights reserved. Printed inthe United StatesofAmerica. Nopart ofthis book maybe used or reproduced inany manner whatsoever withoutwritten pen:nis­ sionexcept inthe case ofbrief quotations embodiedincritical articles and reviews. Forinformation, addressHarperCollins Publishers, 10 East53rdStreet, New York, NY 10022. HarperCollins booksmaybepurchased foreducational, business,or sales promotional use.Forinformation, pleasewrite:Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East53rdStreet, New York, NY 10022. “The After Hours Crowd” from Some America by Patrick D. Higgins, © 2008 by Patrick D. Higgins. Reprinted herewith permission fromtheauthor. FIRST EDITION Designed by Kara Strubel LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in- PublicationData isavailableuponrequest. ISBN: 978-0-06-083134-9 08 09 10 II 12 m/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 9 HOOKING UP: SEX IN GUYLAND I know’it’sdifferentatother schools:’ Troypatiently tried to explain to me. “I mean,at other schools, peopledate. You know,aguy asks agirl out, and they go out to a movie orsomething. You know, likedating? But here atCornell, nobodydates. We go outingroups to local bars. We go toparties. And then after we’re good and drunk, wehook up.Everyone just hooks up.” “Does that mean youhave sex?” Iask “Hmm,” hesays, withahalf-smile onhis face. “Maybe, maybenot. That’s sortof the beauty of it,you know? Nobody can reallybesure.” My conversation withTroy echoes anoverwhelming majority of con­ versations Ihave hadwith young people allacross the country. Whether among college students orrecent gradsliving inmajor metropolitan areas, “hooking up”defines thecurrent formofsocial and sexual rela­ tionships amongyoungadults. The onlypoint Troy iswrong about ishis assumption thattraditional dating isgoingonanywhere else.Dating, at least incollege, seems to begone forgood. Instead, the sexual marketplace isorganized aroundgroupsofsame­ sex friends who go outtogether t6 meet appropriate sex~.Ia1 partners in a casual setting likeabar oraparty. Twopeople run intoeach other, seeminglyatrandom, andafter afew drinks theydecide to go backto one or theother’s room or apartment, wheresomesexual interaction occurs. Thereisno expectation ofafurther relationship. Hookups can morphintosomething else:either friends withbenefits oradating rela­ tionship. But that requires someadditional, and complex, negotiation. Many adults findthispromiscuity hardtograsp. What isthis hook­ ing upculture all abouttWhat doesit mean exactly? What’sthe point ofall that sex? Isiteven fun? Forthepast twoyears, I’vebeen involved in astudy tofind out. The Online College SocialLifeSurvey wasdevel­ oped initially byPaula England, asociology professoratStanford, and has now been administered toabout 7,000 college students atnine campuses-large and small, public andprivate, eliteand nonelite­ including Stanford,Arizona,Indiana,Radford, UCSanta Barbara, SUNY StonyBrook, IthacaCollege, andEvergreen State.Weasked participants abouttheirsexual behaviors, theirexperiences ofvarious sexual activities, orgasm,drinking behavior, andtheir romantic reIition­ ships. We asked bothwomen andmen, gay and straight-but mostly straight. Allwere between 18 and24.I’ve also consulted withother researchers atother schools, andcompared ourdata with theirs. And I’ve looked atdata from several large,nationally representative studies of sexual behavior amongyoungpeople: . Some ofwhat’s goingonwon’t come as that much ofashock; afterall, young adulthood sincethesixties hasbeen atime ofrelative sexualfree­ dom andwell-documented experimentation. What may be surprising, though, ishow many young people acceptthathooking up-recreational sexwith nostrings attached-is the best andmost prevalent arrange­ ment available tothem. Once, sexual promiscuity co-existedwithtradi­ tional forms ofdating, andyoung people couldmaneuver betweenthe two ontheir waytoward serious andcommitted romanticrelationships. Now, hookingupispretty much allthere is;relationships beginandend with sex. Hooking uphas become thealpha andomega ofyoung adult romance. Andthough hooking upmight seemutterly mutual-after all,just who areallthose guyshooking up with?-what appearsonthe surface to be mutual turns out to be anything but.Despite enormous changes Hooking Up: Sex in Guyland I 191 inthe sexual attitudes ofyoung people, the gender politics ofcampus sex don’t seem tohave changed very much atall. Sex inGuyland isjust that-guys’ sex. Women arewelcome toact upon theirsexual desires , butguys run thescene. Women whodecide not to join the party can lookforward to going tosleep early and alone tonight-and every night. And women who do join the party run the riskofencountering the same olddouble standard that noamount of feminist” progress seems able toeradicate fully.Though womenmayaccommodate themselves to men’s desires-indeed, somefeelthey have toaccommodate themselves to them-the men’s rulesrule. What thismeans isthat many young women arebiding theirtime, waiting for the guystogrow up and start acting likemen. Yet the hooking-up culturesodominates campuslifethat many older guys -report having adifficult timemaking atransition toserious adult relationships. They all say that eventually they expect toget married and have families, butthey have noroad mapforgetting fromdrunken sloppy “Did we ordidn’t we?”sexto mature adult relationships. Itturns out that choosing quantityoverquality teaches themnothing about long-term commitment. Nor is itmeant to. The pursuit of conquests is moreabout guysproving something toother guys than itis about the women involved. Asaresult, mostguysdrift toward adulthood ill prepared foremo­ tional intimacy better suited tofantasies ofbeing “wedding crashers:’ (hooking upwith women whoareattending afriend’s wedding) than becoming groomsthemselves. They knowlittlemore about themselves and theirsexuality at28 than they didat 18, and the more subtle aspects of romance and partnership likewiseremainamystery. Theybarely know howtodate. While thehookup culturemightseemlikesome sort of orgiastic revelry,in truth theseguysaremissing out.It’snot just that they’re delaying adulthood-it’s thatthey’re entering itmisinformed and ill prepared. ABrief History of Campus Sexual Patterns In the1930s, Michigan sociologist WillardWallerdescribed campus 192 GUYlAND romanceasacomplex dance that he called “rating-dating-mating.” Waller sawacompetitive romanticmarketplace inwhich students rated themselves inreference to both the other sex and the evaluations oftheir same-sex friends(“rating”). Theythensought todate appropriately­ slightly up, but nottoomuch. In their eyes, dating “up”toomuch would make the relationship tooinsecure; dating”down” woulddecrease your own rating. In ordertohave what he called a”Class N’ rating, men,Waller wrote, “must belong toone of the better fraternities, beprominent in activities, have acopious supplyofspending money, be well-dressed, be’smooth’ in manners and appearance, havea’good line,’dance well and have access to an automobile.” Women,bycontrast, mayneed “good clothes, a smooth line,ability todance well,” but paramount, byfar was her already determined “popularityasadate,” sinceher”prestige depends on dating more than anything else.” What isimmediately strikingaboutWaller’s comment, writtennearly three-quarters ofacentury ago, ishowaccurate itcontinues to be-for men. His prestigestilldepends, in large part,onhis social networks and hismaterial assets. Her datability, though,nolonger depends simplyon social attributes. To besure, women haveto be pretty and sociable-that hasn’t changed. But,according toarecent survey atDuke, they also have to be sexy, and accomplished, and ambitious, and athletic-and not to show thatthey areexpending anyenergy at alldoing anyofit. “Effortless perfection” wasthephrase the university gavethephenomenon. In Waller’s time,allthis rating and dating wasultimately in the ser­ vice of mating-romantic (and sexual) relationshiDs betweencommitted intimate partners that wouldlead,eventually, tomarriage. Buttoday, the sequence ofrating, dating, and mating has been all but abandoned among youngadults. To be sure,theystillrate themselves and each other. Men have tobe cool, women effortlessly perfect.But the ideaof dating seemsquaint but irrelevant. Today,campus culture is nolonger about dating to find an appropriate mate.Now,it’smore about mating to find anappropriate date! “A dateforme is,like, when aguy calls youup and says, ‘would you like to go someplace,’ youknow, like to dinner, ortoa movie,” says Hooking Up: Sex in Guy/and 193 Debbie,a21-year-old seniorat the University ofVirginia. “Thatnever happens here!”Shelaughs. “Nowit’slike you s~e aguy at aparty and he says, ‘What areyou doing now? Can 1walk you home?’ It’slike, you know, the beginning of the dateislike the end of the date. He walks you home, and then youhook up.” In some waysthis is notnews. College campuses havealways been sexual hothouses, placesofsexual experimentation, freedom, and preda­ tion. Many of the reasons areobvious: Youngpeople areout from under direct parental control and feelfreer toexperiment withdifferent activi­ ties. The fact that many areaway fromhome means theyarealso freed from the critical scrutiny oftheir high-school and neighborhood friends, free to tryon new identities withdifferent cliques.And, of course,their hormones arein full gear. To many parents, the sexual shenanigans of the contemporary col­ lege campus sound like some drunken bacchanalian orgy. Butthis isn’t because parental restrictions havedisappeared or because sexual liberalism pervades campus life.Allthis sexual activity oncollege campuses also has alot todo with simple demography: the onsetof fertility inadolescence, firstsexual experiences, and the delayed age of marriage. Stated mostsimply, acollege student todaywillnever again be ina place where there are so manysexually activeunmarried people. Norwill college students ever againbearound somany sexually activepeople like themselves-with roughly similarclass and racecharacteristics (since mostcollege sexual activity takesplacewithpeople of one’s own race and classbackground). Prior to college, notasmany people aresexually active. And after college, not asmany people aresexually available­ either interms of their physical proximity or interms oftheir relation­ ship status. College isthe quintessential gatheringplaceformiddle-class white Americans aged 18 to22. They don’t evenneed to plan much­ likethey doinhigh school whentheylivewith their parents, orafter they graduate fromcollege, whentheyactually haveto go somewhere to meet others. In college dorms theybump into each other randomly, frequently, seeminglyspontaneously, withlittle planning, likeexcited atoms, eager todischarge. 194 GUYlAND Hooking Up Inrecent years,scholarly researchers and intrepidjournalists havebravely waded intodemarcate the term “hooking up,”map itsboundaries, and explain its strangeterrain. But the definitions arevague and contradictory. One research groupreferstoitas “… asexual encounter whichmay nor maynotinclude sexualintercourse, usuallyoccurring On onlyone occasion between twopeople whoarestrangers orbrief acquaintances.” Another studymaintains thathooking up “… occurswhentwopeople who arecasual acquaintances orwho have just met thatevening ata bar orparty agree toengage insome forms ofsexual behavior forwhich there willlikely benofuture commitment.” Our collaborative researchproject, The OnlineCollege SocialLife Survey, foundthathooking upcovers amultitude ofbehaviors, includ­ ing kissing and nongenital touching (34 percent),oralsex, but notinter­ course (15 percent), manualstimulation of the genitals (19 percent), and intercourse (35-40 percent). It can mean”going all the way.” Or itcan mean”everything but.” By theirsenior year,wefound thatstudents had averaged nearlysevenhookups duringtheircollegiate careers.About one-fourth (24percent) saythey have never hooked up,while slightly more than that (28percent) havehooked upten times ormore. As averb, “tohook up”means toengage inany type ofsexual activity with someone youare not inarelationship with.Asanoun, a”hookup” can either referto the sexual encounter orto the person withwhom you hook up.Hooking upisused todescribe casualsexualencounters on a continuum from”one-night stands”(ahookup thattakes place once and onceonlywith someone who mayor maynotbeastranger) to”sex buddies” (acquaintances whomeet regularly forsex but rarely ifever associate otherwise), to”friends withbenefits” (friendswhodonot care to become romantic partners, but mayinclude sexamong the activities they enjoy together). Part ofwhat makes thehookup culturesodifficult todefine and describe is the simplefactthat young men and women experience itin very different ways. They maybeplaying the same game, butthey’re often onopposing teams,playing byadifferent set of rules, and they Hooking Up: Sex in Guy/and 195 define”winning,” andeven “scoring,” intotally different ways.Sameness doesn’t necessarily meanequality. Indeed, the current patterns ofsociability and sexuality amonghet­ erosexuals haveactually beguntoresemble thepatterns thatemerged in the mainstream gaymale community in the late1970s andearly 1980s, the pre-AIDS era.Sexwas de-coupled fromromance and love, and madepartoffriendships that may-or may not-have anything to do with romantic relationships. “Fuckbuddies” are the precursors to “friendswithbenefits.” Sexwas seen asrecreational self-expression, not freighted with the matched baggage oflove and relationship. When it comes toscoring, then,gay and straight men havealot more in common witheach other than either group does with women. To put it another way, it isgender, notsexual orientation, thatisthe key to understanding thesecampus sexualpatterns. Ifwe want to understand the complexities of the hookupculturewe must dosowith gender in mind. Deliberate Vagueness The phrase “hooking up”itself isdeliberately vague,whichiswhy any attempt todefine itconcretely willinevitably fallshort. In fact, itisitsvery vagueness andambiguity thatcharacterize it.”It’s, like,anything from like making outtointercourse,” saysa19-year-old femalesophomore at Radford University. “[A]nything from,inmy opinion, kissingtohaving sex,” says another. iiHaving sex,” saysanother. Butthen shepauses. But see, hooking upand having sex can betwo different things. It’s really hard. When people say”we hooked up,” you don’t really know whatthey mean bythat. Because Idon’t really consider having sexhooking up.I think that’s adifferent thing.Likehaving sex is separate fromhooking up.I think itshould beanyway. Because everyone can just be,like, “yeah, wehooked up,” and you never know whattheydid. They could behaving sexevery night and you’re assuming thatthey probably justmade outor something likethat. .196 GUYLAND Maybe,asone woman suggested in an interview, hookingupisthe “yada yada yada” ofsex. Did youever see that episode of Seinfeld wherethey’re, like,”yada, yada, yada.” Andyou’re, like,”what does that mean?” She’s,like, “I wenthome withhimandyada, yada, yada.” Andthat’s kind of, like,what ahookup is. Because youdon’t really know exactly what itmeans, unlessyou’retalking toareally goodfriend and they’re tellingyouallthe details. Judging fromoursurvey, there’sawhole lotofyada yada yadagoing on. Yet that vagueness servesmenandwomen invery different ways. When aguy says he “hooked up”with someone, he mayor maynot have hadsexwith her,butheiscertainly hoping that hisfriends think he has. Awoman, onthe other hand, ismore likely tohope they think shehasn’t. In asense, hooking upretains certain features ofolder dating pat­ terns: maledomination, femalecompliance, anddouble standards. Though hooking upmay seem tobe mutually desired by bothguysand girls, ourresearch indicates that guysinitiate sexualbehavior mostof the time (lessthan athird ofrespondents saidthiswas mutual). Hook­ ups aretwice aslikely totake place inhis room asinhers. And, most important, hookingupenhances hisreputation whereasitdamages hers. Guys whohook upalot are seen by their peers asstuds; women who hook upalot are seen assluts who “give itup.” According toDuke’s study ofcampus sexualbehavior, “Menandwomen agreedthedouble standard persists:mengainstatus through sexualactivity whilewomen losestatus.” “There isdefinitely adouble standard,” saysCheryl, asophomore at Creighton. “1 mean, ifIdo what my friend Jeffdoes [hook upwith a different girlvirtually everyweekend], my friends wouldn’t talkto me! Imean, that’sjustgross when agirl does it.But a guy, it’s,like, he’slike Mr. Man.” “If aguy hooks upw.ith agirl; hesort ofbroke downherwall of protection,” explainsTerry,aStanford junior.”She’stheone that lether Hooking Up: Sex in Guy/and 197 guarddown … herjob going into the night … wastolike protect her­ self, protect hermoral character and hermoral fiber, and it’s like you came in and wentafterherand shewas, like,convinced to lether guard down … ” This is asomewhat surprisingview of things,given just howmuch we think everything haschanged. Itnot only echoes the 1950s, but even farther backto the Victorian age.Despite thedramatic changes in sexual behavior spurredby the sexualrevolution, sexualexperience still means something differentforwomen and men. “It’s different from what itused tobe when women weresupposed tohold out untihhey gotmarried. There’spressure nowon both men and women to losetheir virginity,” is how oneguy put it.”But fora man it’s asign ofmanhood, and for awoman there’sstillsome lossofvalue.” The vagueness of the term itself-hooking up-turns outtobe a way toprotect the reputation ofthe woman whileenhancing thatofthe man. In addition to that conceptual vaguenessafter the fact,hookups are also characterized byacertain vagueness before and evenduring the fact aswell. Most hookups sharethreeelements: the appearance of spontaneity, thenearly inevitable useofalcohol, and the absence ofany expectation ofarelationship, Planned Spontaneity In order forhookups towork, theyhave to appear to be spontaneous. And they do-at least to the guys. One guytold me it’s “a sort ofone-time, spur-of-the-moment thing.Hookups generally arevery unplanned.” “Oh, sure,” saidJackson, a22-year-old senioratArizona State, “you go toparties on the prowl,looking tohook up.But you never know if it’s going tohappen. Andyoucertainly don’tknow whoyou’re gonna hook up with. That takes several drinks.” Yet suchspontaneity isnonetheless carefullyplanned. Guyshave elaborate ritualsforwhat hasbecome knownas “the girlhunt.” There are “pregame” rituals, such asdrinking beforeyou go outtobars, since consuming alcohol,arequirement, isalso expensive onalimited budget, so it’s more cost-effective tobegin the buzz before yousetout. 198 GUYLAND There aredefined rolesforthe guys looking tohook up,like the “wing man,” the reliable accomplice and confidant. “Thewing man is the guy who takes oneforthe team,” saysJake, asophomore atNotre Dame. “If there are,like, twogirls and you’re trying tohook upwith one ofthem, yourwing man chats up theother one-even ifshe’s, like, awful-so you can have ashot atthe one you want. Definitely a trooper.” When guysclaim thatthehookup isspontaneous, theyare referring not towhether thehookup willtake place, but with whom theywill hook up.Women haveadifferent viewofspontaneity. Sincetheyknow that hooking upiswhat theguys want, thegirls can’t be”spontaneous” about it.They haveto think-whether or not,with whom, underwhat conditions-and planaccordingly, remembering achange ofclothes, birth control, andthelike. They havetodecide howmuch theycan drink, howmuch theycanflirt, andhow toavoid anypotentially embar­ rassing oreven threatening situations. The guyslounge incomfort of the illusion ofalcohol-induced spontaneity;thewomen areseveral steps ahead ofthem. “Girls, like,before they go outatnight, theyknow whether ornot they’re goingtohook upwith somebody,” saysJamie, a21-year-old senior at Arizona State.”It’snotspontaneous atall.” Yet the illusion ofspontaneity remainsimportant for bothguys and girls. It’saway ofdistancing yourselffromyourownsexual agency, away of pretending that sex just happens, allbyitself. Ithelps young people to maintain acertain invulnerability aroundthewhole thing.It’snot cool to want something toomuch. It’sbetter toappear less interested-that waynoone will know theextent ofyour disappointment ifyour plans don’t come tofruition. The Inevitability of Alcohol Drinking worksinmuch thesame way. Virtually allhooking up is lubricated withcopious amounts of alcohol-more alcoholthansex,to tell thetruth. “A notable featureofhookups is that they almost always occur when both participants aredrinking ordrunk,” saysonestudy. In Hooking Up: Sex in Guyland 199 ourstudy, men averaged nearly five drinksontheir most recent hookup, women nearly3drinks. Saysonewoman: Like, drinking alcoholislike a major thing with hooking upwith people. Alot of the times people won’thaveone-night stands unless they’re drurik. Actually, Ican’t tellyou Iknow one person who hashad aone-night standwithout drinking orbeing drunk, and being, like,”oh,myhead hurts. Ican’t believe Idid that.” To say that alcohol cloudsone’sjudgment wouldbean understate­ ment. Drinking issupposed tocloud yourjudgment. Drinkinggivesthe drinker “beergoggles,” whichtypically expandone’snotion ofother people’s sexualattractiveness. “Afterlikefour drinks aperson looksa little bit better,” explainsSamantha, a21-year-old seniorat the University of Virginia. “After six orseven thatperson looksalot better thantheydid. And, well,afterten, that person is the hottest personyou’veeverseen!” Or, asJeff puts it,”Everybody looksmoreattractive whenyou’re drunk.” But intentionally cloudingjudgment isonly part of the story. The other part is to cloud other people’s judgment. Ifyou were drunk, you don’thavetotake responsibility forwhat happens. Forguys, thismeans that if they getshot down they can chalkitup todrunkenness. The same holds true fortheir sexual performance ifthey doget lucky enough to go home withsomeone. Infact, drunkenness providesaconvenient excuse forallsorts ofpotential sexualdisasters, fromrejection to pre­ mature ejaculation to general ineptitude bornofinexperience. Foralot of guys, theliquid courage provided byalcohol i~ the only thing that makes them able towithstand thepotential forrejection thatanysexual advance entailsinthe first place. While both sexes might get to enjoy the lackof r~sponsibility alcohol implies, this turns outtobe especially important forthe women, who still have their reputations toprotect. Beingwasted isgenerally accepted as an excuse. “WhatdidIdo last night?” you can legitimately askyour girlfriends. And then everyone laughs.It’sstill better to be adrunk than a slut. “A hangover,” LauraSessions Steppwrites inher book, Unhoohed, ‘iis asmall pricetopay for exoner~tion.” 200 GUYLAND The Absence of Expectations One of thekey defining featuresofhooking upisthat it’sstrictly a”no strings attached” endeavor.Youngpeople in college-and thisseems to hold trueforboth women and men-seem generally waryofcommitted or monogamous relationships. The focusisalways onwhat it costs, rather than what it might provide. And if youconsider that half of young adults comefrom:divorced households, theircynicism is neither surprising norunfounded. “] don’t know if]even know anyhappily married couples,” oneyoung woman says.”Most ofmy friends’ parents are divorced, andtheones whoaren’t aremiserable. Where’stheappeal in that?” Hooking up is seenasbeing alot easier than having arelationship. Students constantly saythat having arelationship, actuallydating,takes a lot oftime, and”like, whohastime todate?” asksGreg, ajunior at the College of Wooster inOhio. “] mean, we’reallreally busy,andwehave school, andclasses, andjobs, andfriends, andall.But, youknow,” he says with abit ofawink, “a guy hasneeds, youknow what] mean? Why date ifyou canjust hook up?” When oneolder teenager explained hermost recent hookup to aNew Yorh Times reporter, he askedifshe thought therelationship mightlead to something more.”Wemight date,”sheexplained. “] don’t know. It’s just that guys cangetsoannoying whenyoustart dating them.” “Serial monogamy isexhausting,” oneyoung woman tellsjournalist Stepp. “You put all your emotions intoarelationship andthen youhave to do itall over again.” Saysanother: Dating isa drain onenergy andintellect, andweare overworked, overprogrammed, andovercommitted justtrying toget into grad school, letalone getting married. It’srare to find someone who would … want to put theirrelationships overtheir academics/ future. ]don’t evenknow that relationships areseen asan integrated part of this whole “future” idea.Sometimes, ] think theyareontheir owntrack that runs parallel and that wefeel can be’pushed asideordrawn closer at ourwhim. Hooking Up: Sex in Guyland 201 Which isapretty revealing statement sinceitwasn’t solong agothat Doris Lessing remarked that therehadnever been aman who would jeopardize hiscareer foralove affair-and never been awoman who wouldn’t. Guys seem toagree, butforadifferent set of reasons. Briansays: Being inareal relationship just complicates everything. You feel obligated tobe all, like, couply. And that getsreally boring after a while. When you’re friends withbenefits, you go over,hook up, then playvideo games orsomething. Itrocks. Guys mayhook upbecause theygetexactly whattheywant and don’t have toget caught bymessy thingslikeemotions. “A lotofguys getinto relationships just so they getsteady [expletive] ,”another teen tellsjour­ nalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis. “Butnowthatit’seasy toget sex outside of relationships, guysdon’t needrelationships.” “That’sallIreally want is tohook up,” says Justin, ajunior atDuke. “I don’t want tobe all like boy­ friend and girlfriend-that would, uh,significantly reducemychances of hooking up,you know?” Yet the absence ofexpectations that supposedly characterizes the hookup seemnottobe as true for women. And this isnot asimple case of “women wantlove, men want sex.” Rather, it’s acase of women being able and willing to acknowledge thatthere isalot ofground between anonymous drunkensex and long-term commitment. They mightnot want toget married, butaphone call the nextdaymight still be nice. Young women todayaremore comfortable withtheir sexuality than .anygeneration in history. There arecertainly womenwhoprefer hooking up torelationships. Womenalsohook uptoavoid emotional entangle­ ments thatwould distract them fromtheirstudies, professional ambi­ tions, friendship networks, and othercommitments. Or theyhook up because theydon’t think they’re readyforacommitment and they just want to hang out and havefun. Yet many alsodoitbecause it’s the only game intown. If they want tohave sexual relationships with men-and byall appearances theycertainly do-then thisis the field onwhich they must play. Some women maywant.more, somemaynot, but since 202 GUYlAND more is notavailable either way, theytakewhat theycanget. Asone young woman explained it to sociologist KathleenBogle, Most ofthe girls Iknow arelooking forsomething, youknow, someone/even ifit’s notserious, s?meone that isthere to hang out with and talk to.[Girls want] afeeling of being closeto someone and I don’t know i(it’s even that guysdon’t want that, it’s just that they don’t care iftheyhave that, it’slike “whatever.” Itcould beany other girlany night andyouknow that’sfinewith them. And forthe women whodowant relationships, hookingupseems to be the only way to find thesort ofrelationships theysaythey want. They hope thatitwill lead somewhere else.SaysAnnie, 23,who recently graduated fromGeorge Washington University,inresponse to “Why do women hookup?” Because theywant tofind love. They want, eventhough people don’t careabout consequences, theywant to find love. At l~ast girlsdo.Atleast I do. Iwanted tofind love. Iwanted to be happy and inlove andjust have that manly man hold me.They justwant . to find that. Andeven ifthe consequences arebad, it’salot better going through theconsequences andbeing lovedthanitis being alone andnever loved. Race and Hooking Up Hooking upmay beaguy thing, but itis also awhite guything. Of course thereareexceptions, but minority studentsarenot hooking up at the same ratesaswhite students. This is partlybecause minority students On largely whitecampuses oftenfeelthat everything theydo is seen notinterms ofthemselves asindividuals but representative oftheir minority group.”There aresofew blacks oncampus,” saysRashon Ray, asociologist atIndiana and part ofour research team.”Ifone guystarts acting likeadog, well, word willgetaround so fast that he’ll never get Hooking Up: Sex in Guy/and 203 anotherdate.”Asaresult, onsome largecampuses, blackathletes will hookupwith white women, butwill date black women. “I know wedon’t dowhat thewhite kids do,” saidoneblack male student atMiddlebury CollegeinVermont. “That’sright,youdon’t,” said his female companion. “AndIdon’t either. IfIeven thought aboutit, my girlswould holdmeback.” Saidanother black student atOhio State, “if Istarted hooking up,Imean, notlike with some random whitegirl, but like with mysisters, Oh,God, my friends wouldbesaying I’m,like, ‘acting white.’ ” As aresult, minority studentsarelikely toconform to more con­ ventional datingscripts, especially withintheirowncommunities. Our survey foundthatblacks and Latinos aresomewhat lesslikely to engage in hooking up, and Asianstudents are far lesslikely to doso. Hooking Up and Relationships: “The’ Talk” Ingeneral, womentend to bemore ambivalent abouthookup culture; some report feeling sexyanddesirable, othersfeelit’scheap and rarely leads anywhere. Butwhen itcomes to forming anactual relationship, the’ tiltisalmost entirely towardthewomen. They are the ones who must negotiate whetherthehooking upwill proceed to adeeper level of intimacy. On many campuses, womenare the oneswhotypically initiate the ((Define theRelationship” conversation-the “DTR,” Of, moresimply, “TheTalk.” “Areweacouple ornot?” sheasks. Some women don’tevenbother toask. “Ididn’t want to bringitup and just be, like, ‘sowhere dowe stand?’ because Iknow guysdon’t like th~t question,” saysonewoman’to sociologist KathleenBogle ..Another tells her it’s the women whowant the relationship and theguys who make the finaldecision. “It always comesdown to that,”saysAnn, a junior atWright StateUniversity. You know, women seehooking updifferent frommen. Imean it’s fun and all, but like after once ortwice, like,where isitgoing? i mean, are you oraren’t you,youknow, likeacouple? Me and my girlfriends alwaystalkabout howtobring itup, how to start the 204 GUYLAND talk.Iknow he doesn’t want to hearit.But otherwise, what’sall that hooking up for? Justin,ajunior atGeorge Washington, offerstheapposite retort: Oh, man, don’tgetme started on”the talk”! It’slike assoon as you hook upwith someone, andyou, like,have agood time, or whatever, andsuddenly she’sall,like, “well areweacouple, or not?” Of course you’renot! You just hooked up,man! “So,” Iask him, “what do youdowhen shewants tohave thattalk?” Avoid it.Like ifshe says, allserious, like,”Justin, wehave to talk,” like you know what’s coming, right?That’s whenIget busy doing something else. Or Idon’t callherback. Or Itry and avoid seeing herinprivate andonly like bump intoheroncampus or something. ButIdefinitely do not want tohave thattalk. Itruins everything, But why areguys sorelationship-phobic? VirtuallyeveryguyIspoke with saidthathewanted toget married someday, andthat hehoped he would behappy. Justnotnow andprobably notuntil hisearly thirties. Their relationship phobiasareless related to fears ofromantic entangle­ ments fromwhich theywould havetrouble extricating themselves, and more todo with thepurposes ofhooking upinthe first place. Hooking up, for guys, is less arelationship path than itis for women. Infact, it serves anentirely different purpose. Sex as Male Bonding .In some wayshooking up.represents thesexual component of young men’s moregeneral aversion toadulthood. Theydon’twant girlfriends or serious relationships, inpart, because theydon’t feelthemselves ready (they’re probably not)andalso, inpart, because theysee relationships as”too much work.” Instead theywant thebenefits ofadult Hooking Up: Sex in Guy/and 205 relationships,whichforthem seem to beexclusively sexual,withnone of the responsibility thatgoes along withadult sexuality-the emotional connection, caring,mutuality, andsometimes eventhecommon human decencythatmature sexualrelationships demand.Simplyput,hooking up is the form ofrelationship guyswant withgirls. Yet it’sabit more complicated thansimple pleasure-seeking onthe part ofguys, because asitturns outpleasure isn’tthefirst item onthe hookup agenda. Infact, pleasure barelyappears onthe listatall. If sex were thegoal, aguy would haveamuch ‘better chance ofhaving more (and better) sexifhe had asteady girlfriend. Instead,guyshook up to prove something to otherguys. The actual experience ofsex pales in comparison to the experience oftalking aboutsex. When I’vejust gotlaid, thefirst thing I think about-really, I shouldn’t be telling youthis, butreally it’sthe very firstthing, before I’veeven like “finished”-is that Ican’t waittotell my crew whoIjust did. Like, Isay to myself, “Omigod, they’renot going to believe thatIjust didKristy!” So says Ted, a21-year-old junioratWisconsin: Like Ijust know whatwillhappen. They’llallbehigh-fiving me and shit. And Kristy? Uh,well, she’ll probably askmenot totell anyone, youknow, to protect herreputation andall.But, like, yeah, right. I’mstill gonna tell my boys. Hooking upmay have less to do withguys’ relationships withwomen and more todo with guys’ relationships withother guys.”It’slikethe girls youhook upwith, they’re, like,away ofshowing off to other guys,” saysJeff, aproud member ofafraternity atthe University ofNorthern Iowa. “I mean, youtellyour friends youhooked upwith Melissa, and they’re like,’whoa, dude, you areone stud.’ So, I’minto Melissa because my guyfriends thinksheis so hot, andnow they think more ofme because ofit. It’s totally aguy thing.” He looks abit sheepish. “Don’tgetme wrong,” headds, withlittle 206 GUYlAND affect. “I mean,yeah,Melissa isvery niceandblah blah blah.Ilike her, yeah. But,” he sort oflights upagain, “theguys think Itotally rule.” Jeff’s comments echothose Iheard” fromguysallacross thecoun­ try. Hooking upisnot forwhatever pleasures onemight derive from drunken sexonagiven weekend. Hookingupisaway that guys com­ municate withother guys-it’s about homosociality. It’saway thatguys compete witheach other, establish apecking orderofcool studliness, and attempt tomove upintheir rankings. “Oh, definitely,” saysAdam, a26-year-old Dartmouthgraduatenow working infinancial servicesinBoston. “I mean, whydoyou think it’s called~scoring?’ It’slike you’re scoring withthewomen, yeah, but you’re like scoring on theother guys. Getting overonagirl isthe best wayof getting yourguys’ approval.” His friend, Dave,28,sitting nexttohim atthe bar, isalso aDartmouth grad. He nods. “It’snotjust like keeping count,”hesays. “Not asimple tally, you know? It’slike ‘how many have you had?’yeah, but it’s also’who did you get?’ That’s how my guys … well,that’s howweevaluated you for membership inthe worldwide fraternityof guys.” Theybothlaugh. Of course, theawesome insecurity that underlies suchjuvenile blus­ tering remains unacknowledged, whichisinteresting since that inse­ curity isthe driving forcebehind so much ofsex inGuyland. The vast majority ofcollege-aged guysarerelatively inexperienced sexually.Most of them havehadsome sex, but notasmuch asthey’d like,andnowhere near asmuch asthey think everyone elsehashad. Perhaps they’ve received oralsex,lesslikely they’ve performed it,and ifthey have had intercourse atall itis generally onlyahandful oftimes withonepartner, two ifthey’re lucky.There arevirtually notrustworthy adultswilling or able totalk honestly aboutsexwith young people. Talking totheir parents is far too awkward. Sexeducation inschools isoften restricted to aquasi-religious preachingofabstinence. Anyinformation that they do manage tocobble together-how itworks, what to do, what women like, what they expect-comes almost entirely fromtheirpeers, and from pornography. In fact” pornographywindsupbeing thebest source of sexual information availabletothem, andaswe’ve seenpornography is filled withlies. Hooking Up: Sex in Guyland 207 Yet mostguys think thatthey arealone intheir inexperience. They think thatother guysarehaving alot ofsex, allthe time, withahuge number of women. And they suspect, but would have noway ofknow­ ing, that other guysarealot better at itthan they are.Seen inthis light, the hookup culture, atleast forguys, ismore than adesperate bidsimply to keep up.It’saway tokeep up, and keep quiet about it-while being rather noisyat the same time. Hooking Up vs. Good Sex Mature sexual relationships arecomplex; goodsextakes timetodevelop. It usually helpstobe sober enough toknow what ishappening. Hooking up may provide quantitative evidenceofmanly sexual prowess, butit cannot answer the qualitative insecurities thatinvariably attendsexual relationships. Hookingupmay make onefeel more likea man when talk­ ing with other guys, butitdoesn’t help-indeed, it may actually hinder­ healthy and mutually satisfying sexualrelationships withwomen. And it certainly cannot answer the anxieties that haunt guyswhen theyare alone. Hooking upoffers sexwithout entanglements, butit isattended by somany possibilities forego devastation, misunderstanding, and crises that it can stillbecome quiteentangled. And since there is somuch surface interaction inhookup culture, but solittle actual connection, most ofthis stays buried. With allthis hooking up,friends withbenefits, and booty calls,guys should feelthey have itmade. Butthere is acreeping anxietythatcon­ tinually hauntsguys’sexual activities, particularly thesealmost-men. They worry thatperhaps they’renotdoing itenough, orwell enough, or they’re notbigenough, or hard enough.Though the evidence suggests that men arein the driver’s seatwhen itcomes to sex, they feel that women haveall the power, especially the powertosay no. And these days, those women haveanew “power” -the power to compare. Many of the guysIspoke withbecame suddenly uneasy when the topic of women’ssexualexpectations came up. They shifted uncom­ fortably intheir seats, looked down at the floor,orstared intotheir soft drink asifitwere an oracle. 208 GUYLAND Jeff,asophomore at UC SanDiego said, Uh, thisisthe tough part,youknow. Imean, well,like, we’re supposed tohave hooked upalot, but now soare they, andthey, like, talkabout itin ways thatweguys never would. So, like, you feel likeyouhave to be this fabulous loverandthey have to come atleast three times, and like,your, youknow, your,ub, dick isn’tthebiggest she’severseen, and,like, you always feel like you’re beingmeasured and coming upabit … [he laughs uncomfortably], short. “I think guysinyour generation weremore worried aboutwhether or not you were going toget laid atall,” says Drew, asenior atKansas State. ”I’m pretty sureIcan hook upwhen Iwant, andIhave several FWBs and even theoccasional bootycall.ButIworry aboutwhether I’many good atit. Ihear allthis stuff from other guysabout whatthey do, and how crazy theygetthe girl, and Ithink, whoa, Idon’t dothat.” Guys feelalot ofpressure to hook up,alot ofpressure to score­ and to lettheir friends knowabout it.And theyfeelalot ofpressure to be great inbed. InBogle’s study,somestudents estimated thatsome of their friends werehooking uptwenty-five timeseverysemester. And, they believed that while they thought hooking upmeant kissing and other stuff, theythought’their friendswereactually havingintercourse. “It’s always the other student who,theybelieved, actuallyhadintercourse every timetheyhooked up,”shewrites. . I asked guysallacross thecountry whatthey think isthe percent­ age ofguys ontheir campus who had sexonany given weekend. The average answerIheard wasabout 80percent. That is,they believed that four out ofevery fiveguys oncampus hadsexlast weekend. Actu­ ally, 80percent is the percentage ofsenior men who have ever had vaginal intercourse inour college survey. The actualpercentage onany given weekend iscloser to5 to 10 percent. This giv~s one an idea of how pervasive thehooking-up culture is, howdistorted thevision of young menby that culture is, and thesorts ofpressures aguy might feel asThursday afternoon hintsatthe looming weekend. Howcanhe Hooking Up: Sex in Guy/and 209 feellike a man ifhe’s close to the only onenotgetting laid? And ifso manywomen areavailable, sexuallypromiscuous, and hooking up as randomly as the men are,what’s wrongwithhimifhe’s the only one who’s unsuccessful? As it turns out, guys’ insecurity is notaltogether unfounded. Most hookups arenot great sex.Inour survey, intheir most recent hookups, regardless ofwhat actually tookplace, only 19 percent of the women reported havinganorgasm, ascompared to 44 percent ofthe men. When women received cunnilingus, onlyabout aquarter expe~ience an orgasm, thoughthe men whoreported theyhadperformed cunnilingus on their partner reported thatshehad anorgasm almost60percent of the time. This orgasmgapextends tointercourse aswell. Women reportan orgasm 34percent of the time; the men report that the womenhadan orgasm 58percent ofthe time. (Thewomen, notsurprisingly, arefar better abletotell if the men had orgasms, and reporting ratesarevirtu­ ally identical.) Many women, itturnsout,fake orgasm-and most do so Hto make that person feelgood, tomake themfeellike they’ve donetheir job.” Butsome women saidthatthey faked it”just really toend it,” because they’re, “like,bored with it.” “He was,like,trying so hard tomake me come,” says Trish, asenior at Washington UniversityinSt. Louis. “Andthere was,likenoway itwas going to happen. Ifelt sobad forhim. Imean, Ihad gone down onhim and he came already, and hewas, like,trying tobe agood sport about it, but really … SoI just faked it, and he feltgood and Ifelt relieved.” Hooking Up and Gender Politics Hooking upseems disadvantageous towomen inso many ways, and not only because the sexisn’t sogreat. In fact the disincentives appear so numerous that one eventually mightwonder whywomen bother. The hookup cultureappears topresent akind oflose-lose situation. If they don’t participate, theyrisksocial isolatiqn-not tomention thatthey also forego sex itself, aswell asany emotional connection theymaybe 210 GUYLANO’ able to squeezeoutof the occasion. Ifthey doparticipate, theyfacethe potentially greaterriskof”loss of value,” and there’s agood chance that they won’t evenhaveanyfun. On theother hand, oneought notoverstate the case. Anti-feminist jeremiads fretconstantly aboutwomen’s lostmodesty, chastity,oreven their capitulation tomale standards ofsexual conduct. Conservative columnists complainaboutever-loosening sexualmores, and use the genderinequality ofhookup culturetoadvise women to keeptheirlegs crossed. Women, theycounsel, must remember themessage thattheir grandmothers mightoncehavetoldthem, “menwantonlyonething.” And sowomen, ifthey yearn forcommitment and marriage, have to re­ learn howtojust sayno. Since the I990s, abstinence campaignshavebeen encouraging young people totake a”virginity pledge” and torefrain fromhetero­ sexual intercourse untilmarriage (thecampaigns assumethatgayand lesbian students donot exist). Abstinence-based sexeducation ispretty much the only sex education onoffer inthe majority ofAmerican high schools. And many parents seeabstinence as the bestadvice they can offertheirchildren abouthowtoreduce theirriskforsexually transmit­ ted disease,unwanted pregnancy, orsexual assault. At first glance, suchcampaigns appear to be somewhatsuccessful. One studyfound that thetotal percentage ofhigh-school studentswho say they’ve hadheterosexual sexhad dropped frommore than 50per­ cent in 1991 toslightly more than 45 percent in2001. Butteen preg­ nancy rateshaverisen, and whatever declineinabortion ratesmayhave occurred isdue largely to the restrictions onitsavailability, notacur­ tailment of sexual behavior. Nordoabstinence campaignsoffset the othermessages teenagers hear.Sociologist PeterBearman analyzeddata from over90,000 students, and foundthattaking avirginity pledgedoes lead an average heterosexual teenagertodelay hisorher first sexual experience, but only by about eighteen months. And thepledges were only effective forstudents up to age 17. By the timetheyare20years old, over 90percent of both boys and girlsaresexually active.Another campus-based surveyfound that of the 16 percent whohadtaken virgin­ ity pledges, 61 percent of them had brokentheirpledge before graduat- Hooking Up: Sex in Guy/and 211 ing.Pledgers werealsolesslikely to usecondoms, althoughtheywere just aslikely topractice oralsexasnonpledgers. >That’s more, because abstinence-based programsareoften used instead ofactual sexeducation, fewpeople reallyknowexactly what “counts” inkeeping yourpledge. Inone recent survey of1,100 college freshmen, 61 percent believed youarestill abstinent if youhave par­ ticipated inmutual masturbation; 37percent ifyou have hadoral sex; and24percent ifyou have hadanal sex. On the other hand, 24percent believed thatkissing withtongues broketheirabstinence pledge.Inthe survey byAngela Lipsitz and hercolleagues, the majority ofthose who said they “kept” theirvows hadexperienced oralsex. At first glance, abstinence might be seenas the antithesis of the Guy Code, sincepromising nottohave sexwould negate the drive toscorethat is central to the Code. Butabstinence actuallysitseasily within the Guy Code. Abstinence pledges put all the responsibility on the girls to police sexual activity-and to bear all the consequences and responsibilities if something goeswrong. Abstinence pledgesalsomake italot easier for guys tomaintain thegood girl/bad girl,Madonna/whore dichotomythat has kept the sexual double standard inplace fordecades. “Does having sex with, like,aho, actually violateyourabstinence pledge?”onefirst­ year student askedmerecently. “I mean, Idefinitely respectthenice girls, and I am abstinent withthem.” Even those whoadvocate prudence rather than abstinence nonethe­ less seem to focus alltheir attention on the women.Ifawoman ever intends to marry, and most do,hooking upisexactly thewrong way to go, say several recentcommentators on the issue.Ina2001 survey by the Independent Women’sForum,aconservative anti-feminist think tank, authors Elizabeth Marquardt and NorvalGlenntellus that while more than four outoffive college women surveyed saythey want to get married, therearetoomany elements incollege culture that “under­ mine the likelihood ofachieving that goal.” Marquardt and Glenn pro­ pose reviving a”culture ofcourtship” toencourage thoseold-fashioned dates-and thatold-fashioned sexualfrustration. Laura Sessions Steppinher book Unhoohed claims thathooking up isilareplacement fordating,” inwhich “ir~timacy isdisposable”; lIaway of 212 GUYlAND playingatromance whilecontrolling the unruly emotions thatcome with realromance.” Steppargues that “young peoplehavevirtually abandoned dating and replaceditwith group get-togethers andsexual behaviors thataredetached fromlove and commitment-and some­ times evenfrom liking.” Sheworries that thiswill make itmore difficult to date, mate, fallinlove, and marry. Andindeed itmight, for both’ sexes. Yet at the endofher book sheoffers advice onlytomothers and daughters-mostly abouthowwomen shouldbefar choosier abouttheir dating and sexual partners, lestthey permanently impairtheirability to develop those relationships-ever. Suchadvice ignores the pleasure-seeking behaviors and intentionsof both women and men, and assumes thatwomen arenaturally chaste and virginal,wereitnot forthose rapacious men.Such an image isobviously insulting tomen, since itimagines them as no better than predators. And itis also probably insulting to women,whohave shown themselves fully capable ofseeking and enjoying sexinways thattheir mothers­ andcertainly thosegrandmothers! -could never haveimagined. Both women and men are pleasure-seeking creatures,especially oncampus, and itlets guys entirely off the hookif the focus ofall the advice isonly the women. The truth is, hooking upisnot the end of the world-it’s atime-out, like college. And more important, it’sapolitical time-out; thatis,itis experienced differently, and unequally,bywomen and men. Focusing allone’s moralizing attention onyoung V·lOmen only perpetuates that inequality,rather than challengesit. Hooking Up: The New Norm What these earnest warningsmiss,ofcourse, isnot the opposition between hookingup and courtship, butthat hooking up istoday’sculture of courtship. Itiscertainly not true that alltlie women arehooking up in order to developrelationships, norareallguys hooking upin the hopes of avoiding precisely the relationships that the womenareseeking. Most actually want relationships. But,most say, notquite yet. Today’s collegestudents willget married-eventually. It’ll be about Hooking Up: Sex in Guy/and 213 eightyears later than theirmothers and fathers did. And they’ll do thatbychoice, because beforemarriage theywant to establish careers enjoy relationships, and develop autonomy. The contemporary cultur~ ofcourtship is not their parents’ cultureofcourtship, butit is noless a “culture” and no less legitimate becauseofthat. The students Iinterviewed in depth followingourquantitative survey wereconvincing onthis score. Hooking up, in theirminds, is not an alternative to relationships-it’s the newpathway toforming relationships. Evenifonly asmall percentage ofhookups resultinrela­ tionships, mostrelationships dobegin with ahookup. Forsome, hook­ ing upismost definitely in the serviceofa relationship-just not this particular one. “Of courseI’lleventually getmarried,” saysAnne, aPrinceton junior who happens tobe sitting with Dave when Ispeak withhim.”Just not yet. Right now,Ihave to focus onmy career, getting through medi­ cal school, establishing myself.Hooking up’sabout asmuch asIcan handle. It’s the meanstoan end, not the enditself.” Andwith that,she gives Dave a peck onthe cheek, picksup what appears tobe twenty pounds ofscience textbooks, and isoff to the lab. Dave looks atme, shrugs hisshoulders, and grins. “All the girls at Princeton arelike that,” hesighs. “You know thatexpression from,like, your generation,” heeyes me warily, “‘you can look but you better not touch?’ ” Inod and scowl slightly atbeing castasover-the-hill. “Well, around hereit’smore ‘you can touch but you’d better not look’-as in look foragirlfriend.” Kathleen Bogle,asociologist, arguesthathooking uphas become the normative pathtorelationships oncampus. “There’ssomething about the way people definecollege lifeasatime to party and atime to kick back,” shetold ajournalist. “They’repostponing marriage,sothey have timetoplay thefield.” Postgraduate Sex in Guyland Playing the field takes asomewhat differentshapeaftergraduation. Though youngpeople still go tobars orparties ingroups, and some still 214 GUYlAND drinkalot, fewer areslinking offtoempty roomstohook up. On the whole, post-college-aged peoplearereturning tomore traditional dating patterns. Boglefollowed recentgraduates oftwo colleges, andfound that women andmen exchange phonenumbers oremail addresses, and some timeinthe next fewdays theywillcontact eachother andarrange togo todinner orsomething moreconventionally social. It turnsout that hooking upincollege hasadded anew actin an old drama, but it ishardly anew play. Of course, thefact that most young people movebeyond hooking up still doesn’t neutralize itsmore negative aspects.Though thehookup culture maybethe new norm, thatstilldoesn’t makeitideal. Even if guysarehaving sex in order to assuage anunderstandable ins~curity, they arenonetheless usingwomen. Andeven ifwomen arethemselves conscious sexualagents, thereremains anundeniable aspect of capitu­ lat,ion in muchoftheir behavior. “Hookups arevery scripted,” onewoman tellsLaura Sessions Stepp. “You’re supposed toknow whattodo and how to doitand how tofeel during andafterward. You learn to turn everything offexcept yourbody and make yourself emotionally invulnerable.” What kindofsex isthis, where ayoung woman prepares byshutting down andbecoming invulnerable? Whereayoung man thinks more about hisfriends than about thewoman he’shaving sexwith, oreven than his own pleasure? Where everyone isso drunk they can barely remember whathappened? Much ofwhat passes forsex inGuyland isnot the kind ofsex that adults-those with considerably moreexperience inthis a~ena-would think ofas healthy. Itsometimes feelsasifitdoesn’t buildarelationship but rather is intended tobe atemporary stand-in for one.Nordoes it seem tobe particularly goodsex.And thereal skills thatyoung people will need asthey takeonadult sexual relationships rarelyfeature inthe hookup culture. They’renotlearning howtoask forwhat theywant, or ..howtolisten totheir partners, howtokeep monogamous sexinterest­ ing, how tonegotiate pleasure,howtoimprove theirtechniques. And while much of adultsexuality isalso alearn-as-you-go endeavor,that doesn’t mean there isn’tplenty of room for advice andcounsel. Hooking Up: Sex in Guyland 215 Yet mostadults aren’ttalking. The morereligious amongusmay have firmly heldbeliefs thatdictate abstinence and tolerate nomiddle ground, while themore liberal among usmay give our adolescent childrenbooks that explain thephysiological aspectsofwhat theyneed toknow butsay nothing of the emotional component inherent in sexuality.Butrarely do mature adultsactively engagetheirsonsanddaughters inthe kinds of candid conversations thatmight actuaIly proveuseful tothem. Rarely do we talk about asexuality that can beboth passionate andethical; rarely dowe even explain thatthere is such athing as ethical sexuality that doesn’t promote oreven include abstinence asagoal. Instead, the whole subject is soshrouded inembarrassment anddiscomfort thatwe generally avoidit,hoping thatourkids willfigure itout forthemselves without toomuch trouble in themeantime. Luckyforusthey often do. Butnotalways. 216 GUYLAND 189 their girlfriends unless they act like porn stars.” DavidAmsden, “Not Tonight, Honey.I’mLogging On”in New Yorh, October 20,2003. CHAPTER NINE: Hooking Up: SexinGuyland 193 complex dance that he called “rating-dating-mating.” Willard Waller, ”The Rating andDating Complex,” in AmericanSociological Review, 2, October, 1937: 727-34. 193 depends on dating more than anything else.” Ibid., p.730. 195 there will likely be no future commitment.” Tracy A. Lambert, “Pluralistic IgnoranceandHooking Up” inJournal ofSexResearch, 40(2), May, 2003, p. 129. 195 (28 percent) have hooked up ten times or mor~. Our numbers seem tosquarewithother surveys, or, perhaps, runabit tothe conservative side, since wehave alarge sample ofcolleges inour pool, andvirtually allother surveys weredone onlyatthe researcher’s university. 196 very vagueness and ambiguity that characterizes it.See, for example. Andrea Lavinthal andJessica RozIer. The Hooh up Handbook: ASingle Girl’s Guide toLiving ItUp (New York: Simon Spotlight, 2005). p.3. 196 from, in myopinion, kissing to having sex” says another. SeeKathleen Bogle. Hooking Up: Understanding Sex,Dating andRelationships in College and After (New York: New York University Press,2008), p.26. 197 good friend and they’re telling you an the details. Quotes from students atRadford University comefromresearch by my colleague Danielle Currier, whose in~depth interviews parallelthesurvey research ofthe online study. Iam grateful toDanielle for sharing someofher findings. 198 for awoman there’s still’some loss of value.” Laura Sessions Stepp, “Study: Halfof All Teens HaveHadOral Sex” inWashington Post, September 15, 2005; SharonJayson, “TeensDefineSexinNew Ways” inUSA Today, October 18, 2005. 198 rituals for what has become known as “the girl hunt.” See, for example, David Grazian, “TheGirlHunt: Urban Nightlife andthePerformance of Masculinity asCollective Activity”in Symbolic Interaction 30(2),2007. f99 participants are drinking or drunk,” says one study. Norval Glennand Eliz.abeth Marquardt, Hooking Up, Hanging Out, andHopingfor Mr. Right: College Women on Dating andMating Today. New York: Institute for American Values, 2001. p. 15. 200 her book, Unhooked, “is asmall price to pay for exoneration. JJLaura Sessions Stepp. Unhooked: How Young Women PursueSex,Delay Loveand Lose atBoth, (New York: Riverhead, 2007).p. 115. Endnotes 309 201 so annoying when you start dating them.” BenoitDenizet-Lewis, “Friends, FriendswithBenefits andtheBenefits ofthe Local Mall”in New York Times Magazine, May30,2004, p.32. 201 pushed aside or drawn closer at our whim. Laura Sessions Stepp, Unhooked, pp.40, 174. 202 then play video games or something. Itrocks. “Ibid., p.32. 202 outside of relationships, guys don’t need relationships.” Ibid., p.34 203 any night and you know that’s fine with them. Bogle, Hoohing Up, manuscript, Ch. 6,p.6,Ch. 4,p.7. 204 Asian students arefar lesslikely to do so. The median number ofhookups for whitemales, juniors andseniors, was6 (3for white women). The median for black andLatino males ‘was 4,and for Asians itwas zero. 209 had intercourse every time they hooked up,” she writes. Bogle, Hooking Up, Ch. 5,p.20. 210 end it,” because “they’re like bored with it.” Paula England, Emily Fitzgibbons Shafer,andAlison Fogarty, “Hooking Upand Forming Romantic Relationships onToday’s College Campuses” in The GenderedSocietyReader (ThirdEdition) edited by AmyAronson andMichael Kimmel(New York, OxfordUniversity Press,2007), manuscript, p.7. 211 90 percent’of both boys and girls are sexually active. SeePeter Bearman andHannah Bruckner, “Promising theFuture: Virginity Pledges and First Intercourse” in AmericanJournal ofSociology, 106(4),january, 2001, pp. 859-912. 212 just as likely to practice oral sex as nonpledgers. Angela Lipsitz, Paul D. Bishop,andChristine, Robinson, “VirginityPledges:WhoTakes Them and HOv Well DoThey Vork?” Presentation atthe Annual Convention ofthe American Psychological Association,August2003. 212 kissing with tongues broke their abstinence pledge. See Bearman and Bruckner, 2001, and Lipsitz, BishopandRobinson, 2003. 212 they “kept” their vows had experienced oral sex. Lipsitz, et aI., 2003. 213 impair their ability to develop those relationships-ever. Laura Sessions Stepp, Unhooked, pp.13,28, 58,4. 213 those grandmothers!-could never have imagined. Forexamples of this, seeLaura Sessions Stepp, Unhooked; andNorval GlennandElizabeth Marquardt, Hooking Up, Hanging Out and Hopingfor iWr. Right. 214 postponing marriage, so they have time to play the field.” Citedin Sharon Jayson, “What’s Upwith Hookups?” in USA Today, February 14, 2007. 215 your body and make yourself emotionally invulnerable.” Laura Sessions Stepp, Unhooked, p.243. 310 Endnotes
Movie Analysis
Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. II’ with B. Bradford Brown, Ph.D., and .Sanford M. Dornbusch, Ph.D. SIMON & SCHUSTER New York LondonToronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore SIMON &SCHUSTER Rockefeller Center 1230Avenue ofthe Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright ©1996 by Laurence Steinberg Allrights reserved, including the right ofreproduction inwhole orin part inany form. SIMON &SCHUSTER and colophon areregistered trademarks ofSimon &SchusterInc. Designed byJennifer Ann Daddio Manufactured inthe LJ:nited States ofAmerica 3 5 7 9 108 G 4 2 Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Steinberg, Laurence D., date. Beyondtheclassroom: why school reform hasfailed and what parents needtodo / Laurence Steinberg, with B. BradfordBrownandSanford M.Dornbusch. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.Highschool students-United States-Social conditions-Longitudinal studies. 2. Academic achievement-United States-Longitudinal studies. 3. Home and school­ United States-Longitudinal studies.4.High school students-United States­ Attitudes-Longitudinal studies .. I.Brown, B. Btadford (BensonBradford), date. II. Dornbusch, Sanford M. III.Title. LC205.574 1996 370.19’342’09794-.<1c20 96-3GG2 CIF ISBN 0-G84-80008-X EIGHT The Power of Peers Parents playa centralroleininfluencing theirchild’s development andedu­ cation, but by the time children havereached thelater years of elementary school, friendshavetalcen on tremendous importance in theirschool life.In order to understand thefull complement of influences on school perfor­ mance and engagement, especiallyduringtheadolescent years-and in order to understand thecauses of America’s achievement problem-we need to lookclosely atthe iroles played by peerJllIndeed, ourresearch indicates that peers shape student achievement patternsinprofound ways, and thatin many respects friendsaremore powerful ‘influences thanfamily members are, Foralarge number of adolescents, peers-not parents-are the chief determinants of how intensely theyareinvested inschool and how much ef­ fort they devote totheir education,) THE SOCiAL WORLD OF ADOLESCENCE In our research, wedevoted countless hours to investigating anddescribing the social world of adolescence. Thisexpenditure of timeandenergy was necessary becausestudying peerinfluences onadolescent behaviorentails 138 THE POWER OF PEERS muchmorethanstudying theinfluence of theadolescent’s closefriends. The closefriends ayoung person has,while significant influencesinayoung per­ son’s life,areonly asmall part of thetotal complex of peerinfluence. The adolescent’s socialworld canbedrawn as three concentric circles. In the innermostcirclearethe youngster’s one or two ~est friene&-lThese arethe other children with whom thechild spends most of hisorher free time-at lunch, during freeperiods, and so on. If youarethe parent of achild be­ tween the ages of tenand sixteen, talce amoment and think about thechil­ dren whoareyour child’s besrfriends. Thesearethe children whom your child greets first on arriving atschool, andthey arealso thechildren whom your child sees lastbefore leaving schoolatthe end of the day. When the telephone ringsforyour child on aweekday eveningorweekend afternoon, more often than not itisone of thesepals. Best friends comprise theinner circle of thesocial map of adolescence. In thenext circle out arethe youngsters whoaremembers of the adolescent’s rliquel These adolescents arealso thechild’s friends, but theirfriendships are not nearly as intimate as arethe ones thechild haswith hisorher closest companions, andthese relationships mayfluctuate inimportance from week toweek. At anyone time,anadolescent’s cliqueusually willhave somewhere betweensixand tenmembers. Cliquemembers willsitatthe same tables inthe school cafeteria, hangaround witheachother during re­ cess, andinteract witheachother as theytravel toand from class and school. These arethe children whosenames typically popupinthe stories children share withtheir parents abourtheevents of theschool day. The third circle in themap of adolescent peerrelations iscomposed of the adolescent’s~rowd.jrhe adolescent’s crowd ismadeupoflike-minded in­ dividuals whoshare certain features incommon witheachother burwho are not necessarily eachother’s friends. Indeed, it ispossible foradolescents ro bemembers of the same crowd without reallylmowing eachother wellat all. This isbecause adolescents aremembers of the same crowd byvirtue of their common interests,arritudes, andpreferred activities, not because of theirre­ lationships witheachother. What crowd members haveincommon is not intimacy, but shared identity. Buteven though crowdmembers do not share the intimacy of close friends, rhey influenceeachother inimportant ways. An adolescent may not talkmuch about themembers of hisorher crowd, 139 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM but, as youwill read, crowd members greatlyinfluence eachother neverthe­ less. THE IMPORTANCE OF PEER CROWDS When adults tendtothink of peer influences on adolescent behavior,they tend tothink mainly aboutinfluences withintheinnermost circle(best friends), secondarily abourinfluences inthe middle circle(theclique), and only marginally, if atall, abour influences inthe outermost circle(the crowd). This isquitereasonable, since we mightexpect thatindividuals will be most influenced bythe people withwhom theyareclosest, andleast af­ fected bypeople withwhom theyshare littleintimacy. Of course, it istrue that during adolescence, as during otherperiods of life,best friends influ­ ence each other’sbehavior agood deal.Burduring adolescence, peerinflu­ ence operates withincliques andcrowds inextremely important ways,and adults should probably paymore attention thantheydotothe ways in which adolescents areinfluenced bythese groups of friends. It isespecially easy tounderestimate thepower of theadolescent crowd, because itsinfluence istransmitted in less direct,andmore subtle, ways than istheinfluence of theadolescents’ closefriends or clique. Closefriends and clique members influence eachother inadolescence much as theyinfluence each other inchildhood or adulthood: byproviding modelswhosebehavior can becopied (”I’mdressing thisway because Jamielooks so coolwhen she dresses thisway”); byrewarding orpunishing certainactions, therebyin­ creasing (ordecreasing) thelikelihood of our repeating them(”I’mnever wearing thisagain because Lukelaughed atme”); andbyexerting direct pressure tobehave oneway or another (“JessietoldmeIjust had towear this shirt tothe party”). Crowds, incontrast, are less common inadulthood, and their influence isless familiar toadults. IBecause crowdmembers donot necessarily knoweachother personally, they don’t influence eachother directlyt-through modeling,reinforcement, or coercion. Crowdmembers influenceeachother indirectly, throughestab­ lishing normsandstandards thatthemembers feel they must adhere to. Once theadolescent hasidentified withaparticular crowd,thecrowd’s stan­ dards become internalized, incorporated intohisorher own sense of self. As 140 THE POWER OF PEERS aconsequence, adhering to thenorms and standards of the crowd does not feel to theadolescent likesuccumbing to peer pressure; it feels mo ce likean expression of his orher own identity. Adults do not understand thisdistinction verywell. When wethink of “peer pressure,” wetend toenvision anadolescent beingcoerced byfriends to engage inacertain behavior (“Come on, justtrythis cigarette”), inthe company of friends whomodel aspecific action and thenwaittobe imitated (“Everyone isdoing it”),orwho actively rewardorpunish theadolescent for behaving inagiven way(“You’re not really wearing that!”). To be sure,such instances of active peerpressure doindeed occurinthe daily lives of teenagers. Butmuch of thepeer pressure experienced byadolescents is not this active-nor is itnecessarily experienced as pressure-although itis no less powerfulinits own way than the more activeforms. PEER PRESSURE PEAKS IN EARLY ADOLESCENCE IThe less secure weare about ourown identity and our owndecision-malcing abilities, the more weare influenced byothers’ opinions Burthesalience of the crowd as aninfluence on our behavior declines as we’become adults.Be­ cause adolescence is atime when individuals oftenhavequestions about their identity and theirability to function independently, it isinherentlya time of heightened vulnerability tothe influence of others. Whileadultsare not immune to pressure fromtheirpeers, theyaresignificantly less suscepti­ ble toitthan adolescents are. In our research, wehave been able to chart changes inindividuals’ sus­ ceptibility to peer pressure as theymove intoandthrough adolescence. In severaldifferent studies,wehave found thatvulnerability topeer pressure­ that is, how easily swayed aperson isby the demands of hisorher friends­ rises as children becometeenagers, peal There is a specific periodindevelopment, then-roughly from agetwelve through sixteen-when individuals areeasily influenced bytheir peers. And it isduring thistime thatpeers begin ro playanenormouslYI importantrole in influencing achievement. It isespeciallyinteresting to juxtapose thedevelopmental course of peer 141 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM pressure,withitspower peaking inearly adolescence, withwhat weknow about thedevelopmental course of parentalinvolvement inschooling. & noted in the last chapter, national studies of American familiesshowthat parental involvement drops off precipitously betweenelementary and sec­ ondary school-precisely at the time when youngsters’ susceptibiliry topeer influence israpidly rising.Moreover, ourevidence indicates thatthissort of parental disengagement isnot limitedtoschool matters, but affectsawhole range of issues, including monitoring and regulating thechild’s relationships with friends, thechild’s useofleisure time, and thechild’s choice of activi­ ties. Tothe extent thatdiminished involvement intheir children’s livesren­ ders parents’ influence less powerful, thedoor isopened forpeers tostep in and exert asignificant impact on eachother’s behavior-including their be­ havior inschool. And this isprecisely whathappens between thesixth and renth grades. At thispoint, infact, children’s achievement ismoreeasily in­ fluenced bytheir peers thanatany other time in theirschool career. SHOULD ADULTS PANIC? When adultsaretold thatyoung adolescents arehighly susceptible tothe in­ fluence of friends-and, in fact, thatfriends maybemore potent sources of influence than parents-their firstreaction isalmost alwaystingedwithanx­ iety and fear. The stereotype of the adolescent peergroup portrays it as an influence thatinevitably affectsteenagers forthe worse-that rempts them into trouble, steers them awayfrom theendeavors thatadults value, and co­ erces them toengage inrisky orillicit activities. In reality, thisview of theadolescent’s socialworld isfartoo simplistic. True, therearepeers whoencourage theirfriends tobe sexually activeorto experiment withdrugs, and there aresome whocajole theirclassmates into cutting class or skipping school.Butresearch tells us thatthere arealso teenagers who put pressure on theirfriends tostay away from drugs, remain committed toschool, and refrain from sex, and thatthese peers canbejust as powerful intheir influence on other teenagers as peerswhoaretrying to steer other students inthe wrong direction. Inother words, although peer pressure inearly adolescence isagiven, harmfUL peer pressure isnot. Friends caninfluence eachother’s schoolperformance positivelyorneg- 142 THE POWER OF PEERS atively. &; adultssuspect, anadolescent whoseftiends dispatage schoolsuc­ cess willbesteered awayfromscholastic achievement. All otherthings being eq ual,a Bstudent whosefriends areCstudents orwho arealienated from school, willusually see hisorher own grades decline overtime as aresult of associating withthese less academically orientedpeers.But,bythe same token, anadolescent whosefriends valuedoing wellinschool willbenefit by his orher contact withthese peers. That is, a Bstudent whosefriends areA students willimprove hisorher school performance overtime as aresult of these friendships. Althoughalladolescents willbeinfluenced bytheir friends, thespecific direction of influence dependsonwho one’s friends are and whattheyvalue. Because of rhis, it is not enough todiscuss peerpres­ sure inthe abstract-as ifitwere amonolithic negativeinfluence on adoles­ cents’. behavior. Wemust alsoknow theclimate of anadolescent’s peer crowd, thecharacteristics of hisorher close friends, and thevalues heldby the members of hisorher clique. IdentifYing anadolescent’s closefriends andclique mares is simple enough; wecan just askteenagers totell us who their bestfriends are and whom theyhang around with.Butwhat about the more amorphous peer crowds? How do we identifY the crowds thatinfluence youngsters’ behavior? In ordertoanswer thisquestion in our research,weorganized, ineach school, aseries of small “focus groups” composed of students whorepre­ sented across section of thestudent body.Inthese focus groups, weasked students ro talk abour themain crowds intheir school andto identifY stu­ dents whowere exemplary members of each of thecrowds. Although weconducted ourresearch in different parts of thecountry and in very different sorts of schools,wefound striking similarities inthe rypes of crowds thatwere identified ineach school. Let’slookfora moment atthis part of adolescent sociery. THE ADOLESCENT SOCIETY Allschools havecrowds thatemphasize socialstatus, socializing and popu­ larity, although inmost schools thisgroup of thesocially elite isdivided into two somewhat differentcrowds:”populars” (populariry-conscious students who have amoderately strongcommitment toacademic achievement but 143 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM reportmoderate involvement indelinquent behavior and illicitdrug use) and “jocks” (whoarequite similar to”populars,” but less academically ori­ ented, and not as involved indrug use-except for alcohol, whichtheyoften use toexcess). Counterbalanced againsttheseelitecrowds areone ormore alienated crowds-which are referred toby students as “druggies,” “burnouts,” “greasers,”andthelike. Along withheavy involvement indrug use and delinquent activities,members of thesecrowds tendtobe inatten­ tive toschoolwork and often hostile toward teachers andother school per­ sonnel. Finally,nearlyallschools havealarge, amorphous crowd,consisting of “average,” “norma!,” or “in-between” students whodonot distinguish themselves in anyparticular area-including school performance. In addition tothese elire,alienated, and average crowds, schoolsalso typically haveatleasr onegroup of high achievers-sa-called “brains” or “intellectuals”-students who thriveonacademics, fotgecloserelations with school staff, and avoiddrugs anddeviant activities. Mostschools also feature avety small, socially inept crowd-“loners” or”nerds,” as they ate often called-whose members aregenerally low in socialstatus and,conse­ quently, self-esteem. Although thenames of these crowds mayvaty from school toschool, or region toregion (e.g.,”populars” mightbecalled “preppies,” “stuck-ups,” or “””’d .” ‘hb alld”c 1″” “) C SOCles; rugglesmigt e c e rrea {S or stoners ,as Lar as we can tell,their existence is ubiquitous, atleast within publicschools. In racially mixed schools, wealso find crowds that aredefined primatily byethnicity, and only secondarily byother attributes. Forexample, someschools have crowds that ate characterized bystudents only as beingcomposed of Black students, or Vietnamese students, or Mexicanstudents, andsoon. Once we had assembled alist of crowds foreach of the schools wewere studying, weattempted tolocate eachstudent in thectowd structure of his at herschool. In order todo this, weasked adolescents ineach school to classifY other students, ratherthanthemselves, in theschool’s crowds.Wein­ terviewed severalpaits of students ineach school and asked them totell us which crowd each of theitclassmates wasapart of (we prompted them with class lists at yearbook pictures). By tepeatingthisexercise acrossnumerous pairs of tatets, wewete ableto identifY most students’ crowdaffiliation. Al­ though mostteenagers say that theythemselves ateunclassifiable, adoles- 144 THE POWER OF PEERS centshavesurprisingly littledifficulty in identifYing whichgroup(or groups) theirclassmates belong to. THE PREVAILING NORM: GETTING BY With thissocial mapinmind, then,whatdidour study tell us about the peer norms and standards operativewithinthetypical American school? Let’s begin bylooking atthe most common crowdsfoundinAmerican schools andwhat theystand for. As youwillsee,there isn’tmuch of aplace in the typical American highschool forstudents whoseprimary concern is academic excellence. The popularity-conscious, sociallyelitecrowds, whoseconcerns tend to revolvearound socializing, dating, and maintaining socialstatus among friends, accOunt forapproximarely 20percent of students inatypical high school. Students in thesecrowds maydowell enough toget bywithout ger­ ting into academic trouble, but theyrarely striveforscholastic excellence­ most of rheir grades are B’s. Another 20percent of students belong to oneor more of the alienated crowds,whereidentities arecentered arounddrugs, drinking, delinquency, ordefiance; thesestudents areopenly hostile to aca­ demics-on average, theyearn C’s.About 30 percent of students describe themselves as “average”-not especially opposed to academicpursuits,but not exactlystriving forsuccess, either;likerhose inthe social crowds, their grades hoveraround straight B’s. Andbetween 10 and 15 percent of stu­ dents belong toacrowd defined byethnicity, althoughthisfigure variescon­ siderably fromschool to school, depending on theschool’s ethnic composition. The extent to which members of ethnically definedpeer crowds areinvested in academics dependslargely on theparticular ethnic group inquestion, as I’ll explain laterinthis chapter. What about rheexplicitly academically oriented crowds-the “brains,” rhe “intellectuals,” and so on? Despite thefacr rhar these students are en­ rolledinmore difficult, moredemanding courses-many of them ralee hon­ ors and advanced-placement courses-they maintain an A- averagein school grades. Burwhereas some70percent of students belong to one of the solid-B, popularity-conscious elites,one of thelow-achieving, alienared crowds, or to thelarge mass of “average” students, less than 5percent of all 145 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM students are members of ahigh-achieving crowd that defines itself mainly on the basis of academic excellence. Not only is there little room in most schools for the academically ori­ ented, there issubstantial peerpressure on students tounderachieve. Adults might think that virtuallyallteenagers would rather do well in school than do poorly, but our studies suggest that this isnot necessarily the case.Tobe sure, the prevailing expectation among American teenagers isthat one ought to avoidfailing in school and do what ittal,es to graduate. But our surveys indicate that among American teenagers,there iswidespread peerpressure not to do too well. Forexample: •Although mostadolescents saythat their friends believe thatit isim­ portant tograduate fromhighschool (73%)and ro go tocollege (46%), fewer (32%) say thattheir friends thinkit isimportant to get goodgrades or ro go ro “one ofrhe best colleges inthe U.S.” (20%). Nearly as many (16%) say that their friends thinkir isimportanr thatthey be “willing to parry.” •One out of every sixstudents deliberately hideshis or herintelligence and interest indoing wellwhile inclass because they are “worried what theirfriends mightthink.” Onein five studenrs say their friends makefun of people whotry to do well inschool. • More thanone-half of all studenrs saythey almosr neverdiscuss their schoolwork withtheir friends. Morethanone-quarter saythey have never studied withtheir friends. Onlyonein five has studied withhisorher friends morethanfivetimes during thepast school year. •We asked theadolescents inour survey to tell us which crowdtheir friends belonged to andwhich crowd they’dmostliketo be apart of. When askedwhich crowd theywould mostlike to belong to, five times as many students saythe “populars” or “jocks” as saythe “brains.” Three times as many saythey would rather be “parryers” or “druggies” than “brains.” Of all of thecrowds, the”brains” were least happy withwhothey are-nearly halfwished they were inadifferent crowd. PEER INFLUENCES ON ACHIEVEMENT Although theprevailing norm in most high schools is,evidently, to “get by, without showing 0[£” there arepockets within each school in which aca­ 146 THE POWER OF PEERS demicachievement is admired, andothers inwhich ir is actively discour­ aged. These cliques andcrowds thatdefine ayoungster’s socialworld aresig­ nificant influences on thechild’s academic performance, becauseeachcrowd has itsparticulat set of normative standardsandexpectations forachieve­ ment and behavior inschool, andbecause adolescents attempttoconform to the norms andexpectations of their friends. As aconsequence, anindi­ vidual student’s schoolperformance willdepend inlatge measure onwhich crowd thestudent belongsto,and what thatcrowd’s expectations are fat be­ haviorinschool. Simply put,given several adolescents of equal scholastic ability, thosewhoaremembets of intellectual cliquesandcrowds will achieve moreinschool thanthose whoaremembers of the socially elite cliques andcrowds, andboth groups of adolescents willoutperform those who atemembers of alienated crowds. This seems reasonable enough, of course-it is hardlysurprising that membets of academically orientedcrowdsdobest inschool andmembers of alienated crowdsdoworst. Perhaps it ismerelythatstudents who choose to associate withbrainy classmates arethemselves moreacademically inclined, whereas thosethatselect friends fromthealienated crowdsatethemselves less oriented towardschool. Afterall,it is not as if adolescents are placed withindiffetent peergroups. How canwebecettain thatfriendships really affect students’schoolperfotmance, ratherthansimply reflect it. Do friends really influence each other-is itteally acase of “the company they keep”­ or isitsimply that”birds of afeather flocktogether”? By tracking students overathree-year period, we wereabletosee how they were doing inschool atthe beginning of thetime period, whichfriends they were spending timewith, andwhether theirschool performance and behavior changedovertime as aresult. By comparing theacademic careers of studentswhobegan highschool withequivalent grades, but whohaddif­ ferent sorts of friends duringtheschool years, we wereabletosee whether the type of ftiends thatadolescents haveactually makesadifference intheir school performance. The answer is thatitmost certainly does,especially intwo areas: aca­ demic performance anddelinquency. Youngsterswhosefriends weremore academically oriented-that is, whose friends hadhigher grades, spent mote timeonhomework, hadhigher educational aspirations,andwho were more involved inextracurricular activities-did better overthecourse ofhigh 147 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM schoolthanstudents whobegan school withsimilat tecotds but whohad less academically orientedfriends.Similarly, studentswhosefriends were more delinquent-who used more drugs and alcohol and whohadmore conduct problems-developed more problems themselves overtime than did adolescents whobegan thestudy withthesame behavior profile but who had friends whowete less delinquent. , These findings tell us, then,thatparents havelegitimate reason ro be concerned aboutthequalities and values of their children’s friends,espe­ cially during earlyadolescence, whensusceptibility topeer influence runs strong. There isalsoreason tobe concerned aboutthecharacteristics of the crowd towhich anadolescent belongs,sinceourstudy found thatthisin­ fluence matters, too.Allother things beingequal, adolescents whoaremem­ bers of more academically otientedcrowdsdobetter inschool thanorher students, whereasthosewhoaremembers of more alienared crowdsdo worse and ate more likely toget into trouble. How large adifference dofriends mal Let’s begin bylooking atthe first question: How dostudents endup in aspecific nichewithin theadolescent society? HOW ADOLESCENTS SORT THEMSELVES INTO CROWDS What isthesorting ptocess through whichsomeadolescents becomepart of the “brain” crowdandothers become “jocks”? What makes some students become “partyers” andothers “druggies”? Why doadolescents end upwith the particular circle of friendsthey have? The results of our studypointtothree sets of forces thatdetermine in which crowdanadolescent willendup: (I) theadolescent’s personalityand interests, which in partaredetermined bythe way thestudent hasbeen raised byhis orher parents; (2) thetypes of peer crowds available tothat stu­ dent inhis orher particular school;and(3)the tactics thatparents use to “manage” rheirchild’s friendships. Indescribing howthese threesets of forces worktogether, Ihave found ithelpful touse asort of astronautical metaphor thathasthree main parts: thelaunch, theterritoty, andthenavi­ gational plan. THE LAUNCH The firsrset of factors-the child’s personality andinterests-refers tothe general direction inwhich thechild is”launched” as parents prepare tosend the youngster onajourney through adolescence. When thechild is sixor seven, adolescence seemsadistant destination, butparents are already “aim­ ing” thechild toward certain goals-even if theythemselves are not fully aware of what theyaredoing. As aresult of this goal-setting, duringtheearly elementary schoolyears,asort of “launch ttajectory” is established forthe child, especially withregard toschool matters. Launching thechild on acer­ tain trajectory does not guarantee thatheorshe will reach aparticular des­ tination, buritdoes point thechild inageneral direction. At oneextreme arechildren whoarelaunched on aroute that isheaded in the general direction of educational excellence,instilledwirhvalues that 149 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM stressscholastic success, and whoareexpected tomake school achievement a top priority. In thechild’s upbringing, traitslikeperseverance, achieve­ ment motivation, and responsibility areemphasized, and parents put into place highstandards forachievement. At the other extreme arechildren whose launch trajectoty does not aimthechild toward schoolsuccess. The childmaybeaimed toward adifferent goalor,more likely, toward nospecific goal at all. Socialization inthese households maybeoverly permissive orin­ consistent, and parental expectations andperformance standardsareun­ clear. Between thesetwoextremes areother trajectories, whichvaryin the degree towhich theypoint thechild toward schoolsuccess and inthe strength and importance of schooling as an activity. THE TERRITORY Because peersplaysuch animportant roleininfluencing children’sday-to­ day behaviors oncetheyreach adolescence, theterritOlY intowhich achild islaunched-that is, the particular types of peers and peercrowds heorshe islikely to run into-is as important as thelaunch trajectory on whichthe child isinitially placed. Once achild becomes involvedwithacertain group of friends, thesepeers begin tohave an effect onhis orher behavior. Tocon­ tinue theastronautical metaphor,wecan think of peer crowds as sorts of “planets” towardwhichthechild islaunched. Once achild endsupinthe “orbit” of a given peergroup, thepower of that group keepsthechild within its orbit and encourages thechild toadopt acertain set of behaviors and out­ looks. The longer achild orbits around acertain group of friends, thetighter the rein thegroup has on thechild’s behavior, and the more established that behavior patternbecomes. We saw this quite clearly whenwelooked atadolescent drug use. The mostimportant determinant of anadolescent’s initialexperimentation with drugs-primarily alcohol and marijuana-is thehome environment. Spe­ cifically, adolescents aremore likely tobegin drinking and experiment with marijuana whentheycome fromhouseholds thatareexceptionally permis­ sive orinwhich theparents aredisengaged, andthey are less likely toexper­ iment withthese substances whentheirparents areauthoritative. This isnot very surprising. But it is thepeer group, and not thehome environment, that determines whetheranadolescent willprogress fromexperimentation ’50 THE POWER OF PEERS withdrugs toregular use.Adolescent “experimenters” whohaddrug-using friends werefarmore likely tobecome regularusersthanwere “experi­ menters” whosefriends were not usingalcohol orother drugs. Inother words, parental permissiveness ordisengagement maylaunch anadolescent in the direction of drug-using peergroups, but whether drugusebecomes a part of the adolescent’s regularpattern of behavior dependslargelyonthe peer group that he orshe joins. An adolescent fromapermissive familywho does not connect withadrug-using peergroup isunlikely toget into trou­ ble with drugs, despite thepermissive homeenvironment. We can apply thesame logictounderstanding thedual roles of parents and peers inschool achievement. Parentsmaylaunch theirchild on anaca­ demic trajectory, but ifthere isnoacademically orientedcrowdforthat stu­ dent toconnect upwith, thelaunching willhave little effect. On theother hand, ifthere are only academically orientedpeercrowds in agiven setting, what parents doathome, in terms of the trajectory theylaunch theirchild on, will mal To acertain extent, then,theimpact of thehome environment on the adolescent’s behaviorwilldepend toalarge measure onthe peer groups that inhabit theadolescent’s socialworld. Knowing thishelps us understand why the impact of parents on their children’s achievement, whilesignificant, is not all-powerful. Parentsmaysocialize achild inacertain direction, but whether thatsocialization willbe successful-that is, whether theadolescent will actually reachthedesired goal-will also depend onthe peer influences he orshe enCOunters duringthejourney. This,inturn, willdepend onwhich peers areavailable forthe child toassociate with, and howtheadolescent navigates amongthedifferent circles of classmates withinhisorher school. NAVIGATING THROUGH THE ADOLESCENT SOCIETY Although it istruethatparents have less of adirect effectontheir children during adolescence thanduring childhood, ourstudies showthatparents can have apowerful indirect effect bysteering thechild toward somepeer groups and away from others. Through suchpiloting, parentscanexert some control overthetypes of peers theirchild spends timewith and,con­ sequently, overthepeer influences to which theirchild isexposed. 151 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM Therearetwo chief ways inwhich parents dorhis. One way is byar­ tempring to exert some control overthechild’s choice of friends andout-of­ school activiries. This, of course, is difficultoncethechild hasentered adolescence, but itisnot impossible. Indeed,incontrast to the widely held view thatthere is little parents candowhen itcomes to influencing their child’s choice of friends, wefind inour research thatfamilies varyagreat deal in the extent towhich parents monitor andregulate theirchild’s friend­ ships. Moreimportant, parentswhoexercise greatercontrol overwhich peers theirchildren spendtimewith havechildren whodobetter in school and who are less likely to getinto trouble. A second, andpotentially morepowerful, wayinwhich parents influ­ encetheir child’s choice of friends isbyselecting thesettings inwhich their child willspend time-by living inone neighborhood as opposed to an­ other, bychoosing oneschool overanother, andbyinvolving thechild in certain rypes of after-school andweekend activities. This isreallyamatter of playing thepercentages, ttyingtomaximize thenumber of “good” peersa child comes intocontact withandminimizing thenumber of “bad” peerin­ fluences in rhe child’s environment. When parents maximize thenumber of good peers intheir child’s environment, rheyare less likely to need toexert control overtheir child’s choice of specific friends, sincetheodds aregood that bychance alonethechild willcome intocontact withpeers whoare likely to be positive influences onhis orher development. Inessence, al­ though parents can’tchoose theirchildren’s friends,theycaninfluence rheir child’s choices bydefining theavailable pool of possiblepeers. One waythat parents candothis is by malring sure thattheir child’s world is adequately populated withother children whothemselves havebeen raised inauthori­ tative families-families that, as Ihave explained, tend to producethemost well-adjusted children. WHY NEIGHBORHOODS MATTER Aclear example of thisphenomenon wasrevealed when we lookedathow neighborhoods affectchildren’s behaviorandperformance inschool. Be­ cause our sample was so large, we wereable to compare adolescents who went to the same school but lived in different neighborhoods withinthe 152 THE POWER OF PEERS school district.lWhat wefound was that adolescents who live inneighbor­ hoods inwhich alarge proportion of families areauthoritative performbet­ ter inschool andare less likely toget into trouble thanadolescents who come fromidentical home environments-and who go tothe same school-but who live inneighborhoods inwhich thepopulation of author­ itative families ismuchlower. Why wouldgrowing upinaparticular neighborhood matrer,aboveand beyond theinfluence of the home andschool environment? Becausewhere a family lives affects thepool of peers theirchild comes intocontact with, and this, inturn, influences thechild’s behavior. If youareagood parent and you live inaneighborhood withother goodparents, chancesarethat the lessons youhave tried so hardtoteach yourchild athome willberein­ forced whenyourchild comes intocontact withother children, andother adults, inthe community. I want tostress herethatchoosing a”good” neighborhood inwhich to settle andraise afamily is not thesame as choosing anaffiuent neighbor­ hood. Although, as ageneral rule,theprevalence of authoritative parenting rises, andthat of disengaged parenting falls, as onemoves upthe socioeco­ nomic ladder, parenting styleandfamily income arebyno means perfectly correlated. Withinanyparticular social class range,therefore, there is con­ siderable variability inhow children areraised, andit ispossible bothfora well-to-do familytoend upinaterrible neighborhood (so far as thequality of parenting isconcerned) andforafamily of more modest meanstoend up in aneighborhood thatprovides awonderful socialenvironment forchil­ dren. What specific factorsincrease thelikelihood thatagiven neighborhood will provide agood social environment forthe child? Basedonour research, parents shouldlookforahigh level of parental involvement inthe local schools, ahigh level of parental participation inorganized activitiesserving children (sportsprograms, artsprograms, etc.),andahigh level of parental monitoring andsupervision of children. Our research showsthatchildren who grow upinsuch neighborhoods farebetter. Even iftheir own parents are not especially involvedinschool, activeintheir child’s life,orvigilant su­ pervisors of their child’s activities, thechildren benefitfromcontact with peers whose parents havethese characteristics. Andforparents who are in- 153 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM valved,active, and vigilant, livinginacommunity inwhich there isahigh proportion oflike-minded parents gives anadded boost to thebeneficial ef­ fects of an authoritative homeenvironment. SCHOOL CHOiCE: CHOOSING SCHOOLS OR CHOOSING PEER GROUPS? Our findings on theimportance of peers as influences onadolescent achievement and behavior areinteresting inlight of current debates about school choice. Mostdebates aboutproposals toincrease parents’choice of schools-for example, tuitiontaxcredits, givingparents vouchers to usefor private schooltuition, orpermitting parents to chooseamong severalpublic schools withintheir area-have focused on theimpact of these policies on schools’ practices. Proponents of schoolchoice have argued thatpermitting parents to choose among schools-either among privateandpublic schools, or among onlypublic schools-will enhance schoolquality because itwill force schools tocompete witheachother. Opponents of school choicepro­ grams contend thatproviding parentswithvouchers touse forprivate schools willundermine thequality of public schools (bysiphoning resources out of schools’coffers and directlyintoparents’ hands). In addition, oppo’ nentsargue thatencouraging competitionamongpublicschools willulti­ mately widenthegap between goodschools and badones, sincethegood ones, overtime, willbecome moreselective and attract better and better students, whilethebad ones willultimately havetoserve alarger and larger proportion of ill-prepared students. An importantpart of thecase made byschool choiceproponents isthe observation thatstudents attending privateschools outperform thosein public schools. One of themost important elements of thisargument isthat the observed achievement differencebetweenprivate and publicschool stu­ dents persists evenafter talcing intoaccount thedifferent familyback­ grounds of these twogroups of students (as onewould expect, privateschool students, onaverage, comefrommore affluent families). The usualinter­ pretation of the achievement differentialbetweenstudents fromprivate schools and those frompublic ones isnot,then, thatthestudents attending the two lcinds of schools areinherently differentfromeachother, but that 154 THE POWER OF PEERS privateschools havehigher standards, morerigorous requirements, and morestrenuous disciplinary practices. AB aconsequence, it is argued,stu­ dentsattending privateschools takemore demanding courses,workharder, behave themselves better,and,ultimately, learnmore inschool andperform better on achievement resrs. An equallyplausible alternative, though, isthattheachievement differ­ ential between publicandprivate highschool students isnot due ro differ­ ences between theitfamilies or between theirschools, but ro diffetences between theirpeergroups. Compatisons that talce familybackground into account donot control forthe mote intangible facrorsthatdistinguish stu­ dents whoatesent ro private schoolfromthose whoattend publicschool, such as motivation, self-reliance, andtheknowledge thatone’s parents have made afinancial sacrificeforone’s education. Inall likelihood, studentswho attend private andparochial schoolsareexposed ro ahigher proportion of peerswithhigheducational aspirationsandgood study habits, andthis ex­ posure positively affectstheirownbehavior, entirelyindependent of thein­ structional climate of theschool. Although our studydid not include students fromprivate schools, our findings on theimportance of peers, as well as awealth of research onthe minimal effects of schooldifferences on student achievement, are consistent withthisinterpretation. When parents arechoosing aschool, theyare not only choosing aprin­ cipal, aschool facility, andafaculty. They are also choosing classmates-and potential friends-for their child. Our study suggests thatitmay bethis as­ pect of school choice-the choice of apeer group-that may bethe most important, andthat parents shouldkeepthisin mind when selecting a school fortheir child. ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN ACHIEVEMENT: THE IMPORTANCE OF PEERS Our findings on theimportance of peers inadolescent achievement also bear directly on thequestion of ethnic differences in school performance. Remember, one of thepuzzles weencountered whenwelooked atthe role of thefamily inschool achievement wasrhat Asian parents didnot, on the surface, appear ro bedoing anything particularly specialthatwould account 155 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM fortheir children’s remarkable success,norwere Black parents doing anye thingnoteworthy thatwould explain theirchildren’s relativelyweakerper­ formance. Overall,Asianstudents in ourstudy wereperforming betterthan we would expectonthe basis of their parents’ practices, andBlack students were performing worse.Something inAsian students’ livesprotects them, even ifthey areexposed to less than perfect parenting, whilesomething in Black students’ livesundermines thepositive effects of parental involvement and authoritativeness. According to our study, this”something” is thepeer group. One clear reason forAsian students’ success is thatAsian students arefarmore likely than others tohave friends whoplace agreat deal of emphasis on academic achievement. Asian-American studentsare,ingeneral, significantly more likely to say that their friends believeit isimportant to dowell inschool, and significantly less likely than other students tosay that their friends placea premium on having an active sociallife. Not surprisingly, Asianstudents are the most likely to saythat they work hardinschool tokeep upwith their friends. Asian students’ descriptions of theirfriends as hardworking andaca­ demically orientedarecorroborated byinformation we gathered indepen­ dently from thefriends themselves. You mayrecall thatone of theunique features of our study was our ability tomatch information providedbyado­ lescents withinformation provideddirectlybytheir friends. Thisprovided us withamore accurate assessment of eachadolescent’s socialnetwork than would havebeen possible had we beenforced todepend onadolescents’ per­ ceptions of their friends’ behavior, sincesuchperceptions canbeerroneous (like adults, adolescents tend to overstate thedegree of similarity thatexists between theirfriends andthemselves). When welook atfriends’ activitypatterns foradolescents fromdifferent ethnic groups, we see quiteclearly thatthefriends with whom Asianstu­ dents socialize placearelatively greateremphasis onacademics thanother students do,whereas theopposite istrue forBlack andHispanic teenagers. Specifically, Asianstudents’ friendshavehigher performance standards(that is, theyhold tougher standards forwhat grades areacceptable), spendmore time onhomework, aremore committed toeducation, andearn consider­ ably higher grades in school. BlackandHispanic students’friendsearnlower 156 THE POWER OF PEERS grades,spend less timeontheir studies, and havesubstantially lowerperfor­ mance standards. Whitestudents’ friends fall somewhere betweenthesetwo extremes on these various indicators. When Ifirst sawthese findings, my presumption wasthat they were due entirely toracial segregation inadolescent peergroups. In other words, if Asian students areperforming better in school’than otherstudents, and Black and Hispanic studentsworse, and if peergroups areconstituted mainly alongethnic lines,itnecessarily followsthatAsian students willhave friends whoaredoing betterinschool, and Black and Hispanic studentswill have friends whoaredoing morepoorly. Itturns out thatthesegregation argument isonlypartly true.While it is certainly thecase thatadolescent peergroups arecharacterized byahigh de­ gree of ethnic segregation-about 80 percent of White and Black students, and more thanhalf of Asian and Hispanic studentshavebestfriends from the same ethnic group-there aresufficient numbers of cross-racial friend­ ships in any school toask whether thepattern described aboveholdsforstu­ dents whotravel inintegrated circles. The answer isthatitdoes, atleast for the most part.Even ifwelook solely atyoungsters whosebestfriends are from adifferent ethnicbackground, westill find thatAsian students’ friends place agreater emphasis on doingwellinschool, and Black andHispanic students’ friends,relatively less. Onceagain, White students fall somewhere in between. Peer pressure amongAsianstudents and theirfriends todo well in school isso strong thatanydeficiencies in thehome environment-for ex­ ample, parenting that iseithertooauthoritarian oremotionally distant-are rendered almostunimportant. It is, of course, truethatAsian students from authoritative homesperform better in schoolthanthose fromdisengaged ones. ButanAsian student whocomes fromaless-than-optimal homeenvi­ ronment is likely to be “saved” fromacademic failurebyfalling inwith friends whovalue academic excellence and providethenecessary supportfor achievement. Why is it so likelythatanAsian student will fall intoanacademically oriented peercrowd and benefit fromitsinfluence? Ironically,Asianstudent success isat least partly aby-product of the fact that adolescents do not have equal access to different peergroups inAmerican highschools. Asianstu- 157 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM dentsare”permitted” ro join intellectual crowds,likethe”brains,” but the more socially oriented crowds-the “populars,” “jocks,” and “parryers”-are far less open ro them.Forexample, whereas 37 percent of the White stu­ dents in our sample weremembers of one of these threesocially oriented crowds, only14percent of the Asian students were-even though more than 20percent of the Asian students saidthey wished they could bemem­ bers of these crowds (slightly less thanone-third of the White students as­ pired tomembership inone of these crowds). In essence, atleast some Asian students whowould like ro bemembers of nonacademically oriented crowds aredenied membership in them. A similar argument hasbeen advanced byseveral Asiansocialscientists in explaining theextraordinary success of Asian-American students.They have noted thatacademic success isone of thefew routes tosocial mobiliry open toAsians inAmerican culture-think for a moment of the relative ab­ sence of Asian-American entertainers,athletes,politicians, and so on.For Asian youngsters, whoseemost nonacademic pathwaystosuccess blocked off, they have “nochoice” but ro apply themselves in school. This is why Asian students are so much morelikely than other youngsters ro subscribe ro thebelief thatacademic failurewillbring terrible consequences. When individuals believethatthere arefew opportunities ro success through routes other than education, doingwellinschool becomes thatmuch moreim­ portant. Because Asianstudents finditmore difficult than White students ro breal{ inrothemore socially oriented crowds,theydrift roward academically focused peergroups whosemembers value and encourage scholasticsuccess. The result of thisdrift isthat alarge number of Asian students, eventhose who are less academically talentedthantheir peers, end upincrowds that are highly oriented towardsuccess in theclassroom. Onceinthese crowds, Asian students benefittremendously fromthenetwork of academically ori­ ented peers. Indeed, one of thestriking features of Asianstudent friendships is howfrequently theyturn to each other foracademic assistance andcon­ sultation. The opposite is true forBlack andLatino srudents, whoarefarmore likely thanother students to findthemselves in peer groups thatactually de­ value academic accomplishment. Indeed,peerpressure amongBlack and 158 THE POWER OF PEERS Latinostudents not toexcel inschool isso strong inmany communities­ even among middle-class adolescents-that manypositive stepsthatBlack and Latino patents havetaken tofacilitate theitchildten’s schoolsuccess are undermined. In essence, much of thegood work thatBlack and Latino par­ ents aredoing athome isbeing undone bycountervailing pressuresintheir youngsters’ peergroups. As aconsequence, parentaleffortsinthese ethnic groups do not havethepayoff thatwewould expect. This is true not onlyinracially integtated schools, but insegregated schools as well. In one well-known study of anall-black, inner-city high school, forexample, theresearchers foundthatstudents whotried todo well in school wereteased and openly ostracized bytheir peers for”acting White.” Students werecriticized-accused of acting as iftheywere “better” than their peers-if rheyearned goodgrades, exerted effortinclass, orat­ tempted toplease theirteachers. Thosewhowished todo well academically wete forced tohide their success andtodevelop othermeans of maintaining theit popularity amongclassmates in ordertocompensate forbeing good students, such as clowning aroundin class orexcelling insome athletic ac­ tivity. Why would Black and Latino peergroups demean academic success? In many minority peergroups, scholastic success is equatedwith”selling out” one’s cultural identity) as somesort of surrender tothe control of White, middle-class America. I found this so interesting thatIasked anextremely brighrAfrican­ American undergraduate inone of my seminars atTemple University, who was familiar with our research, tohelp mebetter undersrand rhisphenome­ non. The student saidthatthefinding rangtrueforher. Shehad been raised in dire poverty withininner-city Washington, D.C., and she was theonly one of her school friends tohave made itout of theghetto; as she explained, all of her former schoolmates wereeither on drugs, injail, onwelfare, or raising aninfant. Shewas torn about where shewould settleaftergraduat­ ing from college; thepull toreturn toher home community was verystrong, but shefelt that she’could nor face herformer friends. Whenever shere­ turned homeduring schoolvacations, she was tauntedforthinking too highly of herself and reased for not yethaving givenbirthtoachild. Shesaid that thepressure herfriends put onher over theyears todrop out of college and return toher roots was enormous. Infact, shesaid, herfriends inti- 159 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM matedthattheonly teason shehad gone off tocollege and avoided eatly pregnancy wasbecause shewas nOt physically attractiveenough to interesta man. Why is succeeding inschool equated insome circles with”acting “”hite” or”selling out”? As Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu,twoAfrican­ American socialscientists whohave studied thisphenomenon explain: [W]hite Ameticans traditionally refused to acknowledge rhatblack Amer­ icans are capable of intellectual achievement, and … blackAmericans subsequently began to doubttheir own intellectual ability, began to define academic success as whitepeople’s prerogative, andbegan to discourage their peers, perhaps unconsciously, fromemulating whitepeople inaca­ demic striving, i.e., from “actingwhite. One of my colleagues atthe University of Georgia, LayliPhillips, points out thatthis message-that academic success issomehow incompatible with a healthy Black identity-is perpetuated byamass media thatemphasizes and glorifies low-income African-American peerculture, malcingitattrac­ tive even tomiddle-class African-American youngsters.African-American parents whowant theirchildren to succeed inschool are not onlybattling the force of theBlack peerculture (whichinmany circles demeans academic success), but are fighting adifficult battleagainst thevery powerful images of anti-intellectual Blackyouth portrayed as normative in music, movies, and television. Weheard variations onthe “acting White” theme many,manytimes overthecourse of our interviews withhighschool students. The sadtruth is that many students, and many Blackstudents inparticular, areforced to choose between doingwell in school and having friends. Although thereare crowds withineachhigh school inwhich academic success isvaluedandin which successful studentsarerespected, thesecrowds tend to bedominated by W’hite students, and peer groups in American highschools are so ethni­ cally segregated thatit isextremely difficultforBlack and Latino students to jointhese crowds. Thus,inmany schools, there isanear-complete absence of identifiablepeergroups thatrespect and encourage academic success and aregenuinely open to BlackandLatino students. As aconsequence, it isfar’ 160 THE POWER OF’ PEERS moredifficult foratalented Mrican-American studentthanit isforacom­ parably skilledAsian at White student tofind thenecessary peersupport for achievement. Among thehigh-achieving Blackstudents inour sample, forexample, only 2percent saidtheir friends weremembers of the”brain” crowd, as op­ posed to8percent of the White students and10percent of the Asian stu­ dents withthesame grades inschool. Interestingly, theproportion of high-achieving Blackstudents whosaidthey wished they were members of the”brain” crowd(6percent) wasabout thesame as itwas for’ White stu­ dents (5 percent), Thus,whilejust as many Blackstudents asWhite students aspire toward membership inthe “brain” crowd,membership inthis group. ismore opento White thantoBlack students. It is important tounderstand thatthepressure againstacademic excel­ lence that ispervasive withinBlackandLatino peer gtoUpS isnotunique to these ethnic groups, Rather,whatwesee inthese peergroups isanextreme case of whar exists within most White peergtoupS as well. As noted earlier, the prevailing norminmost adolescent peergroups is one of “getting by without showing off”-doing whatittakes toavoid getting intotrouble in school, but at the same timeshunning academicexcellence. The chiefdif­ ference appears tobe not in the different ethnicgroups’ avoidance of excel­ lence-this iscommon amongall but theAsian youngsters-but in how the different ethnicgroups defineacademic “trouble,” We measured students’perception of this”trouble threshold” byasking them wharthelowest grade was thatthey could receive without theirparents getting angry, The students’ answerstothis question confirmed oursuspi­ cion: Among BlackandLatino students, not untiltheirgrades dipped below a C- did these adolescents perceivethatthey would getinto trouble, Among White students, however,theaverage “trouble threshold” was oneentire let­ ter grade higher-somewhere between a Band a C. And among Asianstu­ dents, theaverage ‘gradebelowwhich students expected rheirparents to become angrywasanastounding A-! One reasonforthe relatively poorer school performance of BlackandLatino students, then, is thatthese stu­ dents typically havedifferent definitions of “poor”grades, relative totheir White andAsian counterparts, And because peercrowds tendtobe ethni­ cally segregated, differentnormative standardsdevelopwithinBlackand 161 BEYOND THE CLASSROOM Latinopeergroups rhaninother crowds. Conversely, onereason forthe re­ markable success of Asian students isthatthey have amuch stricter, less for­ giving definition of academic failurethantheir Black, White, and Latino peers, and this definition shapespeernorms. Our findings suggest,then,thatalarge part of ethnic differences in high school achievement does not derivefromdifferences inthe ways in which parents fromdifferent ethnicgroups raisetheir children-that is, the “launch” theygetfrom thehome environment-but come instead fromdif­ ferences inthe peer environments-the “territory”-that youngsters from different backgrounds encounter. At atime in development whenchildren are especially susceptible tothe power of peer influence, thecircle of friends an adolescent canchoose frommay malce allthe difference betweenexcel­ lent andmediocre schoolperformance. 152 NOTES 119 MetLifesurvey.Metropolitan Life Survey of theAmerican Teacher, Violence inAmericas Public Schools: The Family Perspective (New York: MetLife, 1994). CHAPTER 7: THE HOME ENVIRONMENT OF ACADEMICALLY SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS PAGE 125 parental involvement wotks:Wendy Grolnick andMarcia Slowiaczek, “Par­ ents’ Involvement inChildren’s Schooling: AMultidimensional Concep­ tualization andMotivational Model,” ChildDevelopment 64(1994): 237-52; David Stevenson andDavid Baker,”TheFamily-School Rela­ tion andtheChild’s SchoolPerformance,” ChildDevelopment 58 (1987): 1348-57. 126 parents of successful students: See alsoAnnette Lareau, Home Advantage: So­ cial Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education (New York: FalmerPress, 1989). 129American parents’involvement: SusanChira, “Parents, TakeLess of aRole as Pupils Age,” The New York Times, September 5, 1994. 129 drop-off inparental involvement: StevensonandStigler, Learning Gap. CHAPTER S: THE POWER OF PEERS PAGE 139 The adolescent’s socialworld: B. Bradford Brown,”PeerGroups,” in S. Feld­ man andG.Elliott, eds., At the Threshold’ The Developing Adolescent (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1990),171-96. 141 changes in.individuals’ susceptibility topeer pressure: Laurence Steinberg and Susan Silverberg, “TheVicissitudes of Autonomy inEarly Adoles­ cence,” Child Development 57(1986): 841-51. 142 Friends can inllu~nce eachother’s schoolperformance: Joyce L. Epstein, “The Inflllenc~ of Friends on Achievement andAffective Outcomes,” in J. Epsteinand N. Karwei:, eds., Friends in School (New York: Academic Press, 1983),177-200. 143 All schools havecrowds: Btown,”PeerGroups.” 149 three sets of forces: B. Bradford Btownetal., “Parenting PracticesandPeer GtoUP Affiliation inAdolescence,” Child Development 64(1993): 467-82. 207 NOTES 152 how neighborhoods affecrchildren’s behavior: Anne Fletcher et al., “The Company They Keep:Relation ofAdolescents’ Adjustment and Behavior toTheir Friends’ Perceptions ofAuthoritative Parentinginthe Social Net­ work,” Developmental Psychology 31 (1995): 300-310; Nancy Darling and Laurence Steinberg, “Community Influences on AdolescentAchieve­ ment and Deviance,” inG. Duncan, J.Brooks-Gunn, and L. Aber, eds., Community Influences on Childand Adolescent Development (New York: Russell SageFoundation, inpress). 158 one of the few routes to social mobility: Sue and Okazaki,”Asian-American Educational Achievement.” 159 students who tried to do well in school:Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu, “BlackStudents’ SchoolSuccess: Coping with theBurden of ‘Acting White,'” Urban Review 18 (1986): 176-206; see also Signithia Fordham, “Racelessness as aFactorinBlack Students’ SchoolSuccess: Pragmatic Strategy or PyrrhicVictory?” Harvard Educational Review 58 (1988): 54-84. 160 “[W]hite Americans tradirionally refused”:Fordham and Ogbu, “BlackStu­ dents’ School Success,” 177. CHAPTER 9: ALL WORK AND ALL PLAY MAKES JACK A DUMB BOY PAGE 165 The widespread employment of American high schoolstudents: SeeLau­ rence Steinberg and Elizabeth Cauffman, “The Impact of School-Year Employment on Adolescent Development,” in R.Vasta, ed., Annals of Child Development, vol. 11 (London: JessicaKingsley Publishers, 1995), 131-66; EllenGreenberger and Laurence Steinberg, When Teenagers Work: The Psychological and Social Costs ojAdolescent Employment (New York: BasicBooks, 1986). 171 working teenagers get less rest. Mary Carskadon, Mancuso,J., and Rosekind, M.,”Impact of Part-time Employment on Adolescent SleepPatterns,” Sleep Research 18(1989): 114. 172 The United States is the only country: Greenberger and Steinberg, When Teenagers Work. 174participation invarious extracurricular activities:Datafrom Laura Berk, “The Extracurriculum,” in P.Jackson,ed., Handbook ofResearch on Cur­ riculum (NewYork:Macmillan, 1992). 20B
Movie Analysis
/ THE RISE AND FALL -OFTHE- AMERICAN TEENAGER Thomas Hine>,, litoiII – Perennial AnImprint ofHarperCollinsPublishers Ahardcover edition ofthis book was publishedin1999 byBard, an imprint ofAvon Books, Inc. THE RISE AND FALL OFTHE AMERICAN TEENAGER. Copyright ©1999 byThomas Hine. All rig!1ts reserved. Printedinthe United States ofAmerica. No part ofthisbook maybeused orreproduced inany manner whatsoever withoutwrittenpennission exceptinthe case ofbrief quotations embodiedincritical articles andreviews. Forinfonnation address HarperCollillS PublishersInc., 10East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. HarperCo11ins booksmaybepurchased foreducational, business, orsales promotional use. Forinfonnation pleasewrite: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins PublishersInc., 10East53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. First Perennial editionpublished 2000. DesignedbyKellan Peck The Library ofCongress has catalogued thehardcover edition asfollows: Hine, Thomas The riseand £111 oftheAmerican teenager IThomas Hine.-lst ed. p. em. ISBN 0-380-97358-8 1.Teenagers-United States. 2. Adolescence-United States. LTitle. HQ796.H493 1999 99-24381 305.235’0973-dc21 CIP ISBN 0-380-72853-2 (pbk.) 02 03 04 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 ONE TheTeenage Mystique Americacreatedtheteenager in its own image-brash, unfinished, ebul­ lient, idealistic, crude,energetic, ~nnocent, greedy, changing in allsorts of unsettling ways. Amessy. sometimes loutishcharacter who isnonethe­ lesscapable of performing heroically when necessary,theteenager em­ bodies endless potential not yethobbled by the defeats andcompromises of life. The American teenager is thenoble savage in bluejeans, the future in your face. Teenagers occupyaspecial placeinthe society. They afeenvied and soldto,studied and deplored. They are expected tobreak somerules, but thereare other restrictions thatapply only to them. They’ areata golden moment in life-and not to be trusted. Ours isaculture that isperpetually adolescent:always becoming but nevermature, incessantly losingits none-too-evident innocence. We don’t want to admitthat we’re grown, mature and responsible. We ad­ mire people like Ronald Reagan, JamesStewart, or David Letterman, who maintain acharmingly awkward,fresh-faced teenagestyle into mid­ dleage and beyond. We like fresmnan legislators and suspecttheexperi­ ence of professional politicians. We arebesotted with youth-it’s nature’s Viagra.Teenagers arefilled The Teenage Mystique 11 with new powersandtheability touse them. We respond withwonder, envy-and alarm. We know we can’t keepupwith these kids. We wonder if theywillbeable tokeep theirenergies under control. We worry thatthey willrunroughshod overeverything that’sworthwhile. What was new about theidea of the teenager atthe time the word firstappeared during World War IIwas theassumption that all young people,regardless of theirclass, location, or ethnicity, should have essen­ tially thesame experience, spent with peopleexactly theirage, in an environment defined by highschool andpop culture. The teen years have become defmed not as aninterlude but rather as something central to life, aperiod of preparation andself-definition, aperiod of indulgence and unfocused energy.Fromthestart, ithas embodied extremeambiva­ lence about thepeople itdescribed. Teenagers embracethelatest dances and thelatest fashions. Adultsfearthat teenagers willgototally out of control. The teenage yearshavebeen defined as, atonce, thebest and freest of life and atime of near madness anddespair. Our beliefS about teenagers aredeeply contradictory: They should be free tobecome themselves. They needmany years of training and study. They kuow more about thefuture thanadults do. They know hardly anything at all. They ought to know thevalue of adollar. They should beprotected fromtheworld of work. They arefrail, vulnerable creatures. They are children. They aresex fiends. They arethe death of culture. They arethe hope of us all. We love theidea of youth, but are prone topanic about theyoung. The very qualities thatadults findexciting andattractive aboutteenagers are entangled with those we find territying. Their energy threatens anar­ chy. Their physical beautyand budding sexuality menacesmoral stan­ dards. Their assertion of physicalandintellectual power makes their parents atonce proud andpainfully aware of their own mortality. These qualities-the things we love, fear,andthink we know about the basic nature of young people-constitute ateenage mystique: aseduc­ tive but damaging way of understanding young people.Thismystique encourages adultstosee teenagers (and young peopletosee themselves) not as’individuals but as potential problems. Suchapessimistic view of the young can easily leadadults tofeel that they arepowerless tohelp young people makebetter livesforthemselves. Thus,theteenage mys­ tique canserve as anexcuse forelders toneglect thecoming generation and, ultimately, tosee their worst fearsrealized. In the first decade of thetwenty-first century,America cananticipate 12 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER thelargest generation of teenagers in itshistory. one even larger than the baby boomer generation thatentered itsteens foufdecades ago. Some seethese young people as barbarians atthe gates, and others look forward greedily tolarge numbers of newconsumers. But allseem toagree that having so many teenagers around will mean something important forthe country. That’s why this is a crucial moment to question the teenage mystique andlook formore useful ways tothink about theyoung. I’m going tobegin with ahorror story.onethat isnot atall typical of young people’s experience today.Itdoes, however, illustrate how the teenage mystique provokes us todraw spurious generalizations froma singular abhorrent actand how itcan lead tostrange anddestructive fonns of denial. On the night of June 6, 1997, aneighteen-year-old woman from Fork River, New Jersey, gavebirth toasix-pound-six-ounce babyboy in the women’s rest room of thecatering hallwhere her high school senior prom was taking place. Her sonwas found dead,tiedinaplastic bag inatrash caninthe lavatory where he was born. Hismother, meanwhile, wasdancing, smiling,andto all outward appearances, en­ joyingwhat’ssupposed tobe amagical night. This story excited tremendous publicinterest, as truehorrors do. Always therearequestions. How could she not have known thatshe was pregnant? Didn’t her parents, vvith whom shewas living, know? And how about her boyfriend of twoyears, thepresumed father? The explanation thatshehad taken towearing baggyclothes didn’tseem convmcmg. The bigger, morefundamental questionwas how shecould have done it.She saidshebelieved thebaby was bam dead. (Prosecutors felt otherwise, andinthe end, shepleaded guiltytoaggravated manslaughter and was sentenced toafifteen-year jailtenn.) But even amiscarriage spurs more emotion thanthis young woman displayed. According toone account, shetouched up her makeupatthe bathroom mirrorafterdis­ carding her child, thenemerged smilingandanimated, minglingwith her classmates as ifabsolutely nothinghadhappened. When faced with shocking events,peoplesearchforreasons andmeanings. In this case, anexplanation wasclose athand: ,Shewasacontempo­ rary teenager, a member of ageneration that’s out of control.”Shehas come of age,” wrote columnist GeorgeWillinthe June 15, 1997 issue of the Washingto/l Post, “in asociety wherecondom-dispensing schools The Teenage Mystique 13 teachsexeducation in the modem manner, which has beenwell-de­ scribed as ‘plumbing forhedonists.”’ People magazine usedtheincident as anoccasion toassemble arogues’ gallery of teenagers who havebeen charged withcommitting callouslyviolentacts. One of these was another young New Jersey woman inher teens charged, withherthen-boyfriend, with killing anddisposing of hernewborn inamotel Dumpster in Dela­ ware. New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman quickly camefor­ ward witha$1.1 million program tocure what shecalled a”moral crisis” thatledteenagers to kill theirinfants. Sheacknowledged thatteen pregnancy was actually in decline, but added thatshewas alarmed atthe phenomenon of teenage mothers who believe “the popular attitude that says, ‘Anything goes,’including givingbirthtoababy anddiscarding it in the trash.” Governor Whitman’s statementdemonstrates thatthefacts have far less power than what people believe is true.Andwhat we seem to believe is that today’s teenagers areuniquely threatening. One distin­ guished criminologist has described abreed of lawless, heavilyarmed, and rutWess “teenage superpredators.” There’s no doubtthatsuch people exist, particularly insome low-income citydistricts wheredrugdealing and other crimes .are justabout theonly economic activities. But there’s a temptation tosee all teenagers-with the possible exception of your own children andafew of their friends-as part of this savage horde. By giving birth to andkilling herbaby atthe senior prom, theyoung woman provided neighbors andpundits withavery strong temptation to cast what happened as aparable. M?-ny elements of the teenage mys­ tique–sexuality, consumption, youthculture, hell-raising-coalesce on prom night. Compared withmost other societies, ours is short of ritualsthat meaningfully recognizeyoungpeople’s arrivalatmaturity. The senior prom is one of the few inwhich young people takeanactive, even enthusiastic role.Itmarks theend of high school, thenear-universal experience of American youth,inaway thatallows young people to be farmore expressive thanthey are,capped andgowned, atgraduation ceremonies. Bothyoung people andtheir elders expect itto be anight to be remembered forthe rest of one’s life. For older people, thesenior promconjures up gyms festooned with crepe paper andgirls in frilly evening gowns. That sort of promdied most places during the1970s. What replaced it,after afew promless years insome schools, isverydifferent, thoughcorsages andeven cum- 14 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER merbundsarestill involved. The event is held inahotel ballroom or catering establishment. The girlschoose drop-dead sexydresses thatmake them appear as adult as possible. Transportation isoften by limousine, a practicethatbegan as aconcession toparents who knew thattheir chil­ drendrink on prom night, probably becausetheyhad.It’sanexpensive event. Atypical prom couple spendsabout$1,000 all told. The contem­ porary prom is not afarewell toschool days but astrong assertion of nearly grown-up status, astatus thatthesociety at large, doesn’t fully accept. By giving birthatthe prom, theyoung woman violated theold­ fashioned meaning of the prom as acelebration of the end of aprotected, almost childish mode of existence. But heract also undermined themore recent tendency by young people touse theevent as anaggressive asser­ tion of maturity. Sheproved herselfphysically capable of bearing achild, but not mentally, emotionally, or morallymatureenough tohandle it. She had, inaword, shown herselftobe ateenager. One element of this story that captured theimagination of those who reflected on it was themusic. Not long aftertheyoung woman emerged fromthewomen’s room,sherequested asong from the disc jockey. It was “Unforgiven” byMetallica, agroup known forthe kind of relentless, pounding soundsthatgive parents headaches andmake them wonder whattheirchildren hearinthis stuff-:-ar indeed whether they can hear at all. “If she is likemillions of other young adults,” wrote Will, sounding likecountless generations of elders,”she has pumped into her ears thousands of hours of the coarsening lyrics of popularmusic.” Others foundsignificance inthe lyrics of thesong, which begins: “New bloodjoinstheEarth andquickly he’ssubdued.” Adults havebeen deploring therawness, primitive rhythms,andcar­ nality of young people’s musiceversince ragtime firstbecame popular early inthe century. Itreminds themthattheir children are becoming openly sexual—-::-and that they have some new moves of their own. In fact, music ismore corrunonIy asubstitute foraction thana provo­ cation. Ballroom dancing is stylizedseduction, but itmost often leads only toanother dance.People singtheblues totell about how miserable they are,anditmakes them and tlleir listeners feelbetter. Marches keep soldiers in line between battles. And heavy-metal fans-when asked how theyreact tothe cacophonous soundsandnihilistic lyrics-tend toreply that themusic calmsthemdown. We probably can’tblame Metallica. (Besides, thechild inits song livesintooldage.) The Teenage Mystique 15 What didmake herdo it? One neighbor suggested itwas theresult of indulgent parenting; her mother andfather gave her acar, and they even bought the gas for it. Others mightblame Satan-or society. I’m reluctant tohazard suchexplanations, becausethelast thing Iwant to do isto seem tobe making anexcuse forsuch anevil act. But whatever the cause, thestory illustrates thegrotesque consequences of theteenage mystique. The young woman was unwilling toadmit, eventoherself, that her actions had consequence-in thiscase, ason. Moreover, the teenage mystique enabledthosearound her todeny thereality of her situation, and itallowedhertodeny thegravity of her act. She accepted one of the mystique’s keyassumptions: What teenagers dodoesn’t really count. Most of us treat theteenager as aself-evident phenomenon, an un­ avoidablestage of life.Adults fulminate aboutteenagers, childrenare encouraged to lookforward tobeing teens, andthose who fitthe defini­ tion seem to accept it,attimes reluctantly. Yettheconcept of the teen­ ager remains arbitrary andconfusing. The word “teenager” tells us onlythattheperson described isolder than twelve, younger thantwenty. Thesesevenyearsrepresent anenor­ mous chunk of aperson’s life,oneinwhich mostpeople experience big physical, emotional, intellectual, andsocial changes. The word”teenager” actually maskstremendous differencesinmaturity between different members of theage group, andwithin individuals as they pass through the teen years. Defining aperson strictly interms of age feels natural tocontempo­ rary Americans. Our society’s commitment toequality seemstodemand objective classifications. We don’t trustpeople in authority to judge whether,forexample, thisyoung person is mature enough todrive or tovote, while another onethesame age isnot. We recognize thatsuch judgments mightbecorrect, but also that they aresubject to abuse. Conferring andwithholding rights isaserious matter, and age seemsto be the most objective standard we canapply. The trouble withcreating adistinct groupdefined solelybyage is that we conjure upphenomena that don’t reallyexist. Is therereally an epidemic of teenage pregnancy, or are women in theirteens simply participating inalarger societal trendtobear children out of wedlock? Crime, especially drugcrime, is amultigenerational industryinwhich people in their teens areactive participants. Is it,then, meaningful to 16 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER speak of ateenage crimeproblem? In1998 Reuters reported on ascien­ tific study that purported to show the neurological causes of “teen angst.” What the researchers found wasthat the “teenage mind” reacts to crises while usingapart of the brain associated with impulsive action,while adults ma~e greater use of theareas associated with rationality andexperi­ ence. Deep in the story. itwas noted that older teens havebrain responses closetothose of adults. There is, in other words, no such things as “the teenage mind,” onlydeveloping human minds. Until thetwentieth century,adultexpectations aEyoungpeoplewere determined not by age but by size. Ifa fourteen-year-old lookedbigand strong enough to doaman’s work on a farm or in afactory or mine, most people viewed him as aman. And ifasixteen-year-old wasslower to develop andcouldn’t perform as aman, hewasn’t one.For young women, theissue was much thesame. To bemarriageable wasthesame asbeing readyformotherhood, whichwasdetermined by physical devel­ opment, not age. Sometimes young people coulddisplay learning, skills, or religious inspiration that would forcetheirelders toacknowledge theirmaturity. The important thing,though, wasthat thematurity of each young person was judged individually. Today’s teenagers serveasentence of presumed imnlaturity, regardless of theirachievements or abilities. The prodigy has tofinish highschool. The strapping, well-developed young man showshisprowess not atwork but on the football or soccer team. The young woman who isreadyto be amother istoldtowait adecade instead. That doesn’t mean that we havegiven upthinking aboutourselves and others in terms of size, only that thismindset coexists uncomfort­ ably with our practice of regimented agegrouping. Recent studies show that young people who view themselves as more physically de­ veloped than their peers are more likely thanothers to be sexually active, to drink; and to engage in risky behavior. They often cause discipline problems in schoolsbecause theyareunwilling toaccept society’s assertion thatthey are not grown up. They arealso more likely to attempt suicide. Today’s young people grow to their fullsize and reach sexual matu­ ritysooner thandidmembers of earlier generations. The mismatch be­ tween young people’s imposing physicaldevelopment andtheir presumed emotional, social,andintellectual immaturity isdramatic.Willthese pow­ erful young people, who are judged not yetready to join theadult world, The Teenage Mystique 17 assertthemselves andimmediately careen out of control,endangering themselves andothers? This is-aperennial anxietythat’sneartheheart of the teenage mystique. Teenagers spendmuch of theirlivesdealing withpeople who do not know them as individuals, and under the control of institutions that strivetodeal with people uniformly. Once theyleave thehouse, they are atthe mercy of abattery of bureaucracies. Chief among theseare public highschools, junior highschools, andmiddle schools, all of which have become increasingly largeandimpersonal. Moreover,issuessuch as insurance liabilityandfear of sexual harassment chargeshaveweakened relationships betweenstudentsandteachers. When theschool dayends, teenagers inpublic areasuspect class, of particular interesttolocal police andthesecurity forces of shopping malls andother private businesses. Teenagersareoften expected to be transgressors, and when theydofail toconform to the frequently ambiguous rules within which theyareexpected tolive, theycan be punished veryseverely. Institutionally, teenagersaretreated as some­ thing lessthan real people-sometimes resembling children,sometimes adults. And during the1990s, it has become politically populartopunish them as both. In recent years,adults’ disapproval of teenagers has grown. Ina1997 survey, 90percent of adults saidthatyoung people arefailing tolearn such values as honesty, responsibility, andrespect, andtwo thirds agreed that thenext generation willbeworse thanthelast. The media offerreasons forpessimism. Justabout all thenews they report aboutteenagers is bad.(Most newsabout anything is bad, of course. Part of theproblem may be that “teen” is suchashort and seemingly descriptive word forheadline writers. You rarelyseeaheadline that says FOUR TWENTYSOMETHINGS ARRESTED.) Still, some of thestories arememorable. Young males showupat school withautomatic weaponsand mow downstudents andteachers who slighted them-or anybody who happens to be around.Ateenage male murders achild who came to his door selling candybars to raise money for hisschool. Two teens in aremote hou~e order out for pizza-because they plan to killthedelivery man.Agang of teens on their waytoplay baseball inthe park bludgeon astranger todeath with their bats. The litany cango on and on.Teenagers seemto be descending 18 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER to alevel of brutality beyond what many adults can remember, or even imagine. “We know we’ve got about sixyears to tum this juvenile crime thing around, or our country isgoing to be living in chaos,”President William J. Clinton said in 1997, expressing an opinion shared by others across the political spectrum. At the time he made the statement, he knew thatcrime by young people hadactually beendeclining fortwo years, but he responded topublic perceptions of amassive increase. Teenagers’ crimeshave become deadlier and more spectacular, but that’slargely because of theweapons beingused. The switchblades used by the juvenile delinquents who were so menacing during the 19505 were surelylethal, but anindividual wasn’t able to harm more than one person atatime. When young people have access to guns, aprivate dispute can tum into amassacre. Indeed, many of the most dramatic recent incidentshave happened in mralareas, where school violence is extremely rare, but firearmsare common. Arecent national study of adolescent healthidentified guns in the home as ameasurable risk to teens’health, along with dmgs,alcohol, cigarettes, and automobiles. In a1998 survey, one in sixteenagers claimedto cany gunsoccasionally, and 6percent said they take them to school. Thus, even as serious crimes by teenagers decreased by more than 11 percentbetween 1994and1996, Congress andmany statelegislatures con­ sidered or enacted legislation requiringpeople asyoung as elevento be tried and punished as adults forawide range of crimes. Inthe November 19, 1995 New York Times, Princeton criminologist John DiIulioprovided a justification fortoughness when he called themid-1990s crimelull “the calmbefore thestorm” andwarned of acoming generation full of teenagers who are”fatherless, godless,andjobless.” Today’steenagers areamenace, and tomorrow’s aregoing to be even worse, theargument goes. Youth crimerateshave been declining throughout the 1990s. Still, as hasalways been the case, people in their teens-especially males­ commit alot of crimes. Throughout the 1990s, a bit less than athird of such serious offenses as murder, rape,larceny, and autotheft were com­ mitted bypeople intheir teens. (In1979 teenscommitted abouthalf of such crimes, but thatwaslargely because there were more teenagers then.) Violent crimefor[mancial gain, like athletics, is ayoung man’s activity, requiring daring,physical confidence, and to ~ome degree, belief in one’s own immortality. Such criminality tends to peak along with men’s physicalprowess during their twenties. The Teenage Mystique 19 Crime is one of the few pursuits incontemporary lifethat allows young men to reach economic maturityataround thesame time as their bodies. Beforetheinvention of the teenager, most young men were making money on their own atfourteen or so, and they weren’t consid­ ered abreed apart but simply members of theworkforce. Crime is one of thefew occupations to which youthfulentry isnot foreclosed. We aremore accustomed tothinking of contemporary teenagers as predatorsthan as victims, but therearegood reasons toworry about them. Farmore of them aregrowing upinlow-income householdsthan was the case afew decades ago. They spendmoretime on theirown; today’s youngpeople areable to be with theirparents tentotwelve fewer hours each week thanwasthe case three decades ago. They arelikely toattend schools thatareovercrowded, acondition that will worsen because fewschool districts expanded theirsecondary schools toaccommodate thelarger numbers of teenagers they will enroll during thenext decade. Manyschool districts havelittle choice inthe matter, because theyarestarved formoney. Publicschools, new taxes, and teenagers arethree of the least popular causesincontemporary America, and when you put them all together,it’sapolitical loser. Even those who aren’t poor willhave aharder timerealizing their ambitions inan economy inwhich higher education is becoming ever more necessary andever more expensive. Four years of college areno longer enough tobring substantial financialrewards. The medianincome for college graduates isequivalent towhat highschool graduates earned in 1970. The good newsabout contemporary teenagers isthatthey arecoping very welldespite thesechallenges. They are,ingeneral, farbetter off than their parents wereattheir age. They arehealthier thanever, and although theirrisk of being shot or murdered ishigher thanitwas forty years ago,their risk of dying during theirteens is considerably lower. They are less likelytodie in automobile accidents,anddespite recent upticks inalcohol anddrug use,these remain farbelow thelevels of twenty-five yearsago.Teenage pregnancies areindecline. Soare high school dropout rates. Young people’s aspirations forhigher education are on theupswing fornearly all racial andethnic groups, withthesignificant exception of Hispanics. They express greateroptimism abouttheirlives than yonng people of the 19705 and19805. It’s good tofeel hopeful abouttheprospects forthe young andto 20 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER feelconfident thattoday’s and tomorrow’s teenagers will turn out all right. Yet,sometimes thisheartfelt desiretosee young people tum out well gives risetoadestructive aspect of theteenage mystique. We tend to believe that young peopleare not fullyformed andthat there isstill time tohelp them correct anymistakes theyhave made. This isagener­ ous belief thatcontains asubstantial element of truth. But thisoptimism becomes distorted when, seeingtheteen years asthelast chance toperfect troubled young people beforethey tum intovicious adults, our driveto perfect the young becomes coerciveandarbitrary. The belief thattheteenager isanunfinished personhelped giverise, acentury ago,tothe juvenile justicesystem. Thisplaced thecourts in a quasiparental roletoward young people andcreated separate procedures and punishments-along with a large roster of offenses thatareconsidered crimes only if young people commit them.Asimilar desiretoshape the teenager tosociety’s liking also underlay theearly twentieth-century movement tomake highschool, which onlyasmall fraction of young people then attended, intoauniversal experience. Thisambition was achieved duringthe1930s. Although thesetwoinstitutions arecurrendy under fire forbeing ineffective, effortstoperfect teenagers arestronger thanever. Indeed, reforming thebehavior of teenagers hasbecome asurrogate fortrying to deal with many problems of thesociety atlarge. The weaknesses we see in youth are our own, and we know it. We become angry with teenagers because we want them togrow intohealth­ ier, wealthier, andwiser versions of ourselves. We convince ourselves that by whipping today’s young peopleintoline, society willachieve temperate perfection afew decades hence,and we willatone for our own shortcomings. Teenagers arethe target of nearly everyeffortto cut smoking, alcohol abuse, andillegal druguse. Mter all, theteen years are when mostpeople acquire badhabits they’ll havetherest of their lives. Yet,despite laws prohibiting sales of tobaccoproducts tominors, thedisappearance of cigarette vendingmachines, andmassive advertising andeducational ef­ forts, smoking by teenagers increased duringthe1990s. One hasto won­ der whether, by focusing so single-mindedly on teenagers, theselawsand exhortations conveythemessage thatsmoking isanadult activity-not merely astupid one.(Smoking isalsoaneffective, low-key way torevolt against health-obsessed baby boomer parents.) Young peoplehavefor many yearsasserted themselves as grown-ups by acquiring adultvices. The Teenage Mystique 21 We tend alsotooverlook olderagegroups in which drug useand drunken driving isincreasing, while we payvery close attention to teen­ agerswhose behavior has, in general, been improving. One result of this attention isa national movement to restrict thedriving privileges of the youngbylimiting thehours theycanlegally drive or forbidding them tocarry other young people in their car. Yet even theAmerican Auto­ mobile Association, which supports suchrestrictions, concedesthatthe main problem with teenage drivers isnot theirage but theirinexperience. There hasalso been awidespread revival of youth curfews in cities from Washington to LosAngeles, Phoenix toDetroit, andDallas toSan Jose. By1997, 146 of the200 largest American citieshadcurfew laws requiring young people under sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen to be off thestreets afteracertain hour. So didmany of thelarge suburban count­ iesthat surround thecities. In most places, the curfew isenforced inter­ mittently andselectively. It isatool thatallows policetodetain young people without cause. Meanwhile, evidencethatcurfews stopcrime by young people is scant. Mostcrime by juveniles is minor andhappens immediately afterschool getsout. InSan Diego, agroup challenging the city’s curfew on constitutional groundsfound that-during aperiod when the curfew wasn’t being enforced-83 percent of youth crimeoccurred outside of curfew hours. No part of theteenage mystique ismore alluring andperplexing than sexuality. Being a teenager is, in some respects, anunnatural act,an imposition of culture on biology. Itmeans continuing tobe achild when your body is telling you otherwise. Young people nearing thepeak of their physical andsexual powers areexpected todelay using them, and focus theseenergies on acquiring skillsandmoral values. Adults, especially parents, hope that young people willremain innocent of their sexual power. They are embarrassed totalk with their children aboutsexuality, fearing thatdoing so willonly encourage theirchildren tohave sex. But theysuspect, correctly in mostcases, thatteenagers arealready exploring their sexuality. Teenage sexuality suffusesandconfuses theculture. Likeatree in first bud, thepotential adult body seems more attractive than one that is fullyformed. Adultsenvyteens fortheir energy, theirfreshness, their passion, and they seektoimitate them. There’s something crazy about the way grown-ups trytorecapture anevanescent moment. Meanwhile, 22 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER television,magazines, and ftlms aresaturated with seductive imagery of teenagebodiesacting out adultfantasies. That’s unsettling toadults and young people alike. The worship of taut young bodiessendsamessage to-adult women thattheir own matu­ rity is akind of failure. Y cung peoplelive in anatmosphere inwhich erotic images of young female andmale bodies arebeing usedtosell nearly everything. (And we areonly now beginning torealize how often adults’ eroticfeelings areacted upon with teenagers.) Contemporary teenagers aresexually active. Among seventh and eighthgraders, about one in sixreports havinghadsexual intercourse, while among ninth throughtwelfthgraders, nearlyhalfreport intercourse. Meanwhile, young people arechanging theirperceptions of various sex­ ual acts. Some researchers havefound thatoralsex isincreasingly defined as justanother form of “making out,” s~ort of realsex, though most parents would not agree. And although theabstinence educationprogramsoffered by many school districts advocate postponing sexuntil marriage, theshape of con­ temporary young people’s livesmakes thatunlikely. Today’steenagers are faced with the prospect of anadolescence thatstretches wellinto their twenties, as graduate andprofessional educationareincreasingly required for jobs payingamiddle-class salary.Fortyyearsago,teenage marriage wascommonplace; now it’sclose tounthinkable. It’sone thing to tell afifteen-year-old tosave sexformarriage when the event islikely in three years or so, but quite different when theevent is adecade or more away. Fewaregoing towait forthose tenyears, sothey reason, “Why not now?” Still, even though adults,teens,andchildren live in ahothouse of adolescent sexualimagery andinnuendo, we persist in abelief or ahope that young people canbekept sexually innocent. We clingtoabiologi­ cally naive belief that if teenagers aren’ttoldanything aboutsex,the problem willgoaway. Parental reticence aboutsexuality is nothing new.Even Sigmund Freud’s sonMartin complained thathisfather wastooembarrassed to tell him anything aboutsex. The sex-drenched character of contemporary commercial culture would seemtodemand thatschools and other institu­ tions thatserve teenagers provideinformation thatmight put themedia’s seductiveness in context. Nevertheless, Congresshaspassed alaw providing extrafunding to states thatinitiate programs encouraging abstinence as theonly means of The Teenage Mystique 23 birthcontrol. Beforethe1997 school yearbegan, parentvolunteers in one rural North Carolina countygathered toslice three chapters out of theninth-grade healthtextbook. The subjects considered includedmar­ riage andparenting, contraception, andAIDS andsexual behavior. Teachers wereinstructed totell students thatthey should find out about these things athome, probably fromparents who areeven more squea­ mish about sexthan Freud was. There’s noevidence thatinformation about contraception-or even distributing condoms in school-gives youngpeople theidea of having sex. The entire culture andtheir own bodies seemtobe doing thatquite effectively. Indeed, ifthere isanyone thingthatcanmake sexdull for teenagers, it istoteach it in highschool. Like sex,money playsacomplex, oftencontradictory roleinour thinking aboutteenagers. Teenagers’ buyingpower is as robust as their sexuality, yet we believethatyoung people donot and should not play a role inthe productive economy.Teenagers areto be protected .from the world of work, whether theywant tobe or not. Teenage consumers helpdrive suchleading industries as popular music, movies, snack foods,casualclothing, andfootwear. They spend about $100billion ayear, just on things forthemselves. Two thirds of this comes fromtheir own earnings, therest from theirparents. Inaddi­ tion, large numbers of people in theirteens shopforfood fortheir families andinfluence purchases whoseestimated worth,depending on theassumptions youmake, ranges from$40billion to$100 billion a year. Because theirnumbers areincreasing andtheir buying habitsaren’t yet fixed, teenagers are of intenseinterest tomarketers. Their tastes and habits hintatthe world of tomorrow. Teen consumers arebelieved to have theeconomic power tomake a new television networksucceed or toenable retailers tomake money on the Internet. Indeed,because mar­ keters findthatpeople undertwenty buy products based on their”aspira­ tional” age,usually aboutfiveyears older thantheir realage, young Americans becomepart of the”teenage” marketaround the age of nine. Adults maynotapprove of everything teenagersdowith theirmoney, but they arecomplacent aboutteenagers’ role as consumers. However, the prospect of teenagers earningmoney, especially alot of money, trou­ bles many adults. That’s because ourculture tells us thatthe “job” of teenagers isnot to work foraliving, buttogo toschool andacquire skills that will 24 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER enablethemtobe fully productive five or tenyears later. Educators and socialworkers callforteenagers’ pay to be kept low sothat they won’t be tempted to enter the job force and become independent prematurely. Underpaying young people is,thus, avirtuous act, done fortheir own good. We tend to view teenagers as more or less of aleisure class, even though it’s clearly not true. They are to be seeneverywhere in the service economy-flipping burgers, working in stores,delivering parcels as theydid acentury ago, though now with afashion-forward attitude. Arecent Gallup pollfound thatabout half of all highschool juniors and seniors workpart-time, averagingfifteenhoursaweek. Despite theevidence of teenagers in productive positions–and the existence of entire industries thatdepend on their labor-we tend to view their work as inessential, away foryoung people tobuy theluxuries they demand whilelearning skills that will beuseful laterinlife. In fact, a study byTulane University researchers suggeststhatworking teenagers are more likely tocome fromrelatively affiuenttwo-parent suburban households thanfrom poorer, urban, or single-parent households,which isn’t toosurprising, considering that s’uburbia is wheretheservice jobs are found. While having ateenager inthe household oncegaveparents useful labor andeven apositive cashflow, contemporary teensarefarmore often afinancial drain. What neverseems tochange, however, is the effort toharness teenagers’ productivity whilelimiting theireconomic rewards andthepersonal independence thesecould provide. Young people todayseemtobe in aworld of their own. They go to school withtheiragemates. They are with them onthe job. They hang out with them andthey buy products andseek out entertainment designed justforthem. The existence of this teenage culture, which seems wholly impervious toadult influence, isone of themost conten­ tious aspects of the teenage mystique. Talcott Parsons, thesociologist who was thefirst tostudy contempo­ rary youth culture duringthe1940s, concluded thatitplaced ahigher priority on humanistic valuesthandoes thesociety atlarge., He observed that while adultsarejudged on arelatively narrowrange of competencies, being whatteens thentermed “a swell guy” required awide range of physical attributes, atWeticability,social skills, confidence, andtoalesser The Teenage Mystique 25 extent,intelligence. Inpractice it’svery demanding toconstantly undergo such all-encompassing assessments.Andit’sextremely inconvenient that it should comeatthe same time as pimples. More recently, youthculture has taken on amore sinister aspect. Parents oftenfeel as if theirteenage offipring havesuddenly become members of an alien tribewhose members payattention onlytoone another. Parentsfeeltheir opinions countfornothing, compared with the judgment of the other kidsatschool. Inreply, teenagers often com­ plaintointerviewers thatthey have been abandoned bytheir parents, who areworking hard,divorced, or uninterested in them. Those on both sides of the generational dividehaveapoint. Some degree of withdrawal fromone’s parents is anecessary part of growing up, and parents inevitably findthisseparation emotionally wrenching. Likewise, manyfamilies havebeen caught between fallingwagesand rising material expectations, forcing longerworkhours forparents. Friends help fill thegap. Nevertheless, youngpeople cravecontact withtheir families. One of themost important incentives toteenage pregnancy, researchershave found, isthat it isaway forthe young woman towin individual attention she wouldn’t ordinarily receivefromfamily members. Indeed, themost powerful positivefactorthatdetermines thewell­ being of young people, according tothe 1997 adolescent healthstudy, isthepresence of parents who areengaged intheir children’s livesand have highexpectations forthem. On average, youngpeople spendmore time hanging out with people their own age.Still, justabout everystudy that has been made of young people intheir teens shows thatthey seek a connection withtheirparents andarevery sensitive totheir actions. The teenage mystique, whichencourages parentstotreat their young as iftheywere some strange andexotic species, playsabig role increating the youthful anomieanddeviant youthculture thatadults sofear. The upcoming generation keepschanging its shape-from tormentor to victim, frominnocent tovoluptuary, fromconsumer tocreator, from menace to hope. It’s not surprising; teenagersquiteliterally embody change. They undergo aseries of physical transformations thatcan be discontinuous, seeminglyunpredictable, andunsettling forthe young and their elders alike. They become walking, back-talking metaphorsforthe speed andinexorability withwhich ourlives arebeing transformed. But of course theyaremore thanmetaphors, morethanpassive 26 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER receptors and reflectors of social.visions. They areindividuals who will learn andcreate and say “No!” atseemingly inopportune times. They will,likeevery generation, face thedifficult task of makingsense of their lives indifficult times. It’seven possible that they will, with OUf help,revise or escape the teenage mystique and invent new and better ways to be young.
Movie Analysis
Teens, TV and Tunes The Manufacturing of American Adolescent Culture DOYLE GREENE McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Greene, Doyle, 1962- Teens, TV and tunes : the manufacturing of American adolescent culture I Doyle Greene. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-6642-9 softcover : acid free paper§ 1. Television and politics- United States. 2. Young consumers- United States. 3. Music and youth- Social aspects. 4. Mass media and culture- United States. 5. Branding (Marketing)- Social aspects. 6. United States­ Sociallife and customs-20th century. 7. United States­ Social life and customs-21st century. 8. Nickelodeon (Firm) 9. Walt Disney Company. I. Title. PN1992.6.G735 2012 305.230973-dc23 2012002936 BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE © 2012 Doyle Greene. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. On the cover: Miranda Cosgrove, iCarly (Nickelodeon/Photo fest) Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com Acknowledgements Preface Table of Contents Introduction: Reading Teen Culture Part One: Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty 1: Teen Culture Industry (or, You Pays Your Money and You Takes Your Choice) 2. On the Importance of Being Hip Part Two: The Society of the Teen Sitcom 3. The Form and Function of the Sitcom 4. Free, White, and Teenage Male (or, How to Con Friends and Manipulate People): Saved by the Bell 5. Nickelodeon Nation Building: From Clarissa Explains It All to Zoey 101 6. The Political Dilemmas of iCarly 7. I Have a Dream job: True Jackson, VP Part Three: Pop Goes Teen Culture 8. The Birth of the Pop Music Sitcom: The Monkees, vi I 3 15 23 39 48 55 72 90 the Archies, and the Partridge Family I 0 I 9. Teen Pop in Opposition: Britney Spears versus Madonna 119 10. My Generation: School of Rock and the Revival of Rock Ideology 133 II. Keeping It Real and Imaginary: The Ideological Contradictions of Hannah Montana 146 vii PART ONE DoN’T TRusT ANYONE OVER THIRTY The crisis consists precisely of the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.-Antonio Gramsci, “State and Civil Society” (1930) In the new millennium there is much less of a generation gap.-Bret Michaels, People magazine (12129/2009} 1 Teen Culture Industry (or, You Pays Your Money and You Takes Your Choice) Adult Production and Teen Consumption In the scope of this project, “teen culture” is defined as cultural production primarily marketed towards an audience of cultural consumers ages 17 and under; in this respect, it could be said the focus is as much on tween culture as it is increasingly differentiated from teen culture as far as critical and marketing discourses. Another way to define it is that “teen culture” is the stuff of the annual Kid’s Choice and Teen Choice Awards, and here the word “Choice” becomes crucial. The core contradiction of teen culture is that it is, and always has been, primarily produced by adults in entertainment industries for adolescent consumers save for its occasional teenage stars like Michael Jackson and Donny Osmond in the early 1970s, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in the late 1990s, or, most recently, Miranda Cosgrove and Miley Cyrus. Converse} y, David Cassidy was 20 when The Partridge Family debuted in 1970 and the Spice Girls were all in their early 20s when their breakthrough hit “Wannabe” was released in 1996. In this way, the term “teen idols” not only (pejoratively) refers to the adult performers but the adolescent fan base who, as far as the teen culture industry goes, might have rancid taste but not filthy lucre. Nevertheless, as much as teen culture is determined by a teen culture industry, teen culture is also determined by teens as far as what brands of teen culture they consume and for how long they consume them. To this extent, teen culture manifests the problematics of mass culture, and the extent the focus cannot be strictly placed on cultural production or cultural consumption. At several levels the production of teen culture epitomizes Theodor W. Adorno’s analysis of the Culture Industry. Adorno decried the standardization of culture in modern capitalism into mass produced, easily consumed, and ide­ ologically affirmative ((mass culture” that negates “true culture” as a challenge and critique of social conditions.’ For Adorno, so-called ((true culture” in the twentieth century was a highly select body of avant-garde modernism (e.g., the 15 16 Part One: Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty music of Arnold Schoenberg or the literature of Samuel Beckett) whereas “mass culture” is “popular culture” as a whole: popular music, Hollywood films, tel­ evision, mainstream novels, etc. 2 Rather than resistance, mass culture manu­ factures pseudo-individuality at both the level of production and consumption; as Adorno defined it, “By pseudo-individualization we mean endowing cultural mass production with the halo of free choice or open market on the basis of standardization itself.” 3 In Why TV Is Not Our Fault (2005), Eileen R. Meehan noted ownership and control of broadcast TV is dominated by the “Big Five” of Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Time Warner, and Viacom. As well as Disney Chan­ nel, Disney owns ABC and ABC Family channels; Viacom is the parent company of Nickelodeon as well as CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Spike, and VH-1. Defin­ ing the TV industry as an “oligopoly,” Meehan suggested: Each company in an oligopoly strives to be number one without destabilizing the oligopoly from which they all benefit, whether as the first or last firm …. True competition would destabilize the oligopoly, putting some of the oligopolists out of business and create a more fluid market structure. Eliminating competition and maintaining the oligopoly is in the interest of each oligopolist. Rivalry exists only to the degree that each oligopolist tries to be the first among equals. 4 As far as teen sitcoms and Second Wave Teen Pop, this largely boils down to the “Big Two” of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.’ The rivalry rather than competition between Disney Channel and Nickelodeon in the teen culture industry has become one of producing almost identical products. The success of Nickelodeon’s Drake and Josh, a teen sitcom about two highly dissimilar step­ brothers (one carefree Hip and one uptight Square) was followed by Disney Channel’s The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, a teen sitcom about two highly dis­ similar twin brothers (one impetuous Hip and the other reserved Square, if not quite as pronounced as the Hip-Square binary of Drake and Josh). With the immense success of Disney’s Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers, Nick­ elodeon responded with teen sitcoms about a teenage rock band (The Naked Brothers Band), a boy band (Big Time Rush), and a teenage girl at a performing arts high school with the career goal of becoming a pop star (Victorious). The popularity of Disney’s High School Musical films spawned the almost identical Nickelodeon made-for- TV film Spectacular! (The more “mature” brand of High School Musical is offered by FOX with Glee.) The success of Nickelodeon’s iCarly, about a teenage girl who produces her own comedy webshow and allows for show-within-a-show skits, was followed by Disney Channel’s Sonny with a Chance, a self-described “TV comedy about a TV comedy” wherein a teenage girl lands a role on a popular teen comedy-variety show which allows for show­ within-a-show skits. 6 Beyond the almost parasitic TV product and production, cross-marketing between teen sitcoms and teen pop is now standard operating procedureJ Most I. Tee11 Culture I11dustry 17 overtly, this entails the manufacture of teen pop performers out of pop music sitcoms including Hannah Montana, The Naked Brothers Band, and Big Time Rush. Moreover, a partial listing of current and former Disney Channel and Nickelodeon teen sitcom cast members who entered the pop music market includes Hilary Duff (Lizzie McGuire), Drake Bell (Drake and Josh), Emma Roberts (Unfabulous), Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana), Emily Osment (Hannah Montana), Mitchel Musso (Hannah Montana), Miranda Cosgrove (iCarly), Jen­ nette McCurdy (iCarly), Selena Gomez (Wizards ofWaverly Place), Keke Palmer (True Jackson, VP), Demi Lovato (Sonny with a Chance), Victoria justice (Vic­ torious), and Leon Thomas III (Victorious). 8 Each popular teen sitcom is accom­ panied by a plethora of merchandise ranging from DVDs, CDs, books, video games, sundry fan collectables, toys, and fashion. True jackson, VP cross­ marketed a “Mad Style by True jackson” line of clothing in partnership with Wal-Mart; one commercial featured a multicultural group of tween girls danc­ ing to the True Jackson, VP theme song. Miley Cyrus also markets clothing through Wal-Mart, and Selena Gomez markets a “Dream Out Loud” fashion line through K-Mart. Here two points need to be stressed. One is that the Culture Industry aspects of teen culture are hardly some recent and diabolical invention of Disney and Nickelodeon. Since Howdy Doody premiered in 1947, the close relationship between “kiddie TV, and advertising has been the ongoing subject of concerns and complaints; hence, the appeal of PBS as a site of educational TV is that the network is “commercial free” as well as politically liberal-to-moderate in mes­ sage. While a more “mature, brand of teen culture- meaning an adult isn’t embarrassed to admit being a fan of the show- Glee similarly cross-markets between TV, pop music, and a plethora of related merchandise.’ Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin were business enterprises as well as rock performers. The Rolling Stones are as much a corporation as a rock band, with cross-marketed products in 2010 including “Rolling Stones Special Editions” of the Trivia Pursuit and Monopoly board games. The most glaring contradiction becomes U2 as the saviors of rock progressive populism and global humanitarianism while U2 singer Bono shakes hands with George W. Bush, hugs Vladimir Putin, and promotes the ethical capitalism of his Product Red line in conjunction with multinationals like Apple, Gap, and Starbucks. 10 As Norma Coates noted, such practices are “conveniently ignored or denied by rock critics in their attempt to somehow blame teenybopper fans, artists, and television for such abominations.”ll Indeed, the Monkees were reviled for their manufactured TV origins, their lack of ((authenticity,” extensive and excessive marketing, and predominantly “teenybopper” assumed audience in the 1960s. Nonetheless, the Monkees under­ went a critical redemption as producers of well-crafted pop music and the inventors of music video in the 1980s (discussed further in Chapter 8). In the 1970s, Kiss was unmercifully flayed by rock critics not only for their hard 18 Part One: Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty rock/heavy metal music and monster movie/superhero imagery, but the accom­ panying flood of merchandise that ranged from a special edition Kiss comic book, Kiss make-up kits, and a horrendous made-for TV movie, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (NBC, 1978). Kiss is now considered an eminent 1970s classic rock band. To this extent, the revisionism is not only historical but polit­ ical, and owes to the fact that the Monkees and Kiss are now part of the middle­ age adult pop culture canon, and therefore elevated to a status of new respectability and superiority in comparison to current teen culture. 12 The other issue is the extent that popular culture allows any spaces for individual and collective resistance. Simon Frith suggested: Production and consumption were … the focus of the mass culture debate …. Out of Adorno have come analysis of the economics of entertainment in which the ideological effects … the transformation of a creative people into a passive mass­ are taken for granted …. From [Walter] Benjamin have come subcultural theories … youth subcultures are said to make their own meanings, to create cultures in the act of consumption. 13 Again, “choice” becomes pivotal as far as teen culture consumption. At worst, teen culture criticism denies tweens and teens have any capacity to make informed consumer decisions and instead mindlessly race to the store to buy any and all products remotely connected to their favorite and unvaryingly “bad” assortment of TV shows, music, movies, etc. In effect, this argument takes an Adorno-Culture Industry view of teen culture as mass production and market deception. At best, teen culture criticism grants tweens and teens make con­ sumer choices although much of their taste is still deemed awful until they become more mature cultural consumers and appreciate the same cultural prod­ ucts as adults. This argument is a backhanded application of the Benjamin­ subculture argument in which teen consumption manufactures a counterfeit cultural identity until they “grow up.” Both of these positions ultimately “devalue” teen culture and teen consumers and instead reflect an elitism that permeates adult attitudes around contemporary teen culture. Teen Culture and the New Generation Gap If the modern mass audience no longer understands Oedipus Rex, I would go so far as to say this is the fault of Oedipus Rex and not the fault of the audience. 14-Anton in Artaud While it appears to be stating the obvious, generational conflict permeates teen culture at the levels of text and context. Historically, primetime domestic sitcoms focus on precocious toddlers and pernicious teenagers being molded by effective parenting. This can be represented by content families (Leave It to I. Teen Culture Industry 19 Beaver, The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, or The Cosby Show), fathers besieged by insolent wives and children (Married … With Children, Home Improvement, George Lopez, My Wife and Kids, According to Jim, or The War at Hon-ze), or beleaguered single moms coping with uncooperative ex-husbands and kids (One Day at a Time, Reba, or The New Adventures of Old Christine). Even teen-centered primetime sitcoms- the more notable recent examples being That 70’s Show, Malcolm in the Middle, and Everybody Hates Chris- gave equal time to the problems of the teenagers (school, romance, parental control) and the adults (work, marriage, troublesome kids). 15 Dan Schneider’s teen programming for Nickelodeon did not develop around gauging current teen consumer taste and trends, but TV he watched as a kid- the classical sitcoms and comedy-variety shows. As important, Schnei­ der was cognizant that teens and tweens demand shows that offer a sense of empowerment, a view quite compatible with Nickelodeon’s programming agenda as a “kids only” TV network. As Schneider put it, When you’re a kid, most of the time you’re being told to shut up by adults. In school: be quiet. Your dad’s watching a show: be quiet. Even the kids who seem to have a lot of freedom, their lives are pretty controlled. So what I try to do on my shows is have the kids come out on top. They’re the smartest ones in the room. They’re the ones in charge. 16 As discussed in Chapters 5 and 6, this also becomes the ideological tension in Schneider’s teen sitcoms. Zoey 101 and iCarly can read as neoliberal updates of the hippie battle cry “Don’t trust anyone over thirty!” (Hannah Montana, True jackson VP, and even Schneider’s own Victorious are another matter)Y These sitcoms posit that “adults are best who govern least,” and provide ethical and ideological lessons around self-governing teenagers and their self-regulating communities which run better on their own rather than the dictates of insti­ tutional adult power structures imposed on them (parents, teachers, business­ people, police, etc.). In terms ofneoliberalism, the metaphor is how to maintain a workable liberal democracy without “big government.” If adults largely control the production of teen culture, Schneider’s com­ ments suggest an additional contradiction. As a multiplicity of discourses, teen culture can overtly presents itself as ”speaking for the kids)) and offer represen­ tations of”teen empowerment” while it can also impose adult lessons and values as to what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable modes of social behavior, such as True Jackson, VP (see Chapter 7). Rock music quite loudly celebrates freedom, non-conformity, and rebellion, be it the hardcore punk of the Circle Jerks’ “Wild in the Streets” and Black Flag’s “Rise Above” or the teen pop of Hannah Montana’s “We Got the Party” and Miley Cyrus’s “Robot.” Sitcoms often negate the agency of teenagers with lessons that reinforce obedience to a status quo where the adults are «the ones in charge.” With the intersection of teen pop and teen sitcoms the tension becomes especially pronounced. As far 20 Part One: Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty Cross-marketing rock ideology: School of Rock promotional image modeled on a Rolling Stone magazine cover (Photofest). 1. Teen Culture Industry 21 as ideology marketing, Hannah Montana becomes ensnared in the contradiction between individuality and agency (the message of teen pop) versus community and conformity (the message of teen sitcoms) which ultimately reaches an untenable crisis in Hannah Montana: The Movie and cannot be rectified under­ neath the film’s superficial sappiness; conversely, Big Time Rush champions individualism while community becomes the byproduct of domination (respec­ tively discussed in Chapters 11 and 12). Specific political messages aside, teen culture is itself a form of identity pol­ itics. While teen culture is produced for teenagers by adults, teen culture is con­ sumed by teenagers and through their consumption they define their particular generation. Put differently, while teens may be forced to order from the menu of the teen culture industry, they also decide what “chiz” they won’t eat. 18 Never­ theless, the demonization of teen culture is still rooted in critical positions that it is all derivative swill that preys on naiVe waifs. A more famous example was the 2001 documentary “The Merchants of Cool” aired on PBS Frontline, a blan­ ket attack on the Big Five and how they “exert unprecedented power in mar­ keting messages to young people, capitalizing on the lifestyle of ‘cool’ and incorporating what have historically been subversive and anti-establishment ideologies as the very center of marketing strategies. “19 Again, this is a valid but limited assessment of teen culture, and “The Merchants of Cool” need be qualified around its own political agenda. Increasingly a niche network for middle-aged, middle-class liberals who were teens or young adults in the 1960s and 1970s, PBS has become a bastion for perpetuating the myths of the 1960s as the apex of American progressivism and youth counterculture (in November 2010, PBS premiered documentaries on Hubert H. Humphrey as well as john Lennon). The 2010 American Masters documentary on the Doors was one par­ ticular example, with the closing statement asserting the Doors remain oppo­ sitional culture because they have never licensed their songs for car commercials. In ~’The Merchants of Cool,” contemporary teen culture is reduced to crass corporate profiteering. In the American Masters documentary on the Doors, authentic youth culture in all of its supposed subversive glory is found in the 1960s counterculture that always was, is, and will be ”anti-Establishment.” Since World War II, each successive generation has grown up around the cultural discourses of cinema, comic books> TV, and rock music as increasingly legitimized forms of culture (for instance, the comic book that is now the “graphic novel”). When teen culture versus adult culture first emerged in the 1950s, it was a fairly clear binary between high culture versus low culture and unambiguously expressed in Chuck Berry’s hit song “Roll Over, Beethoven” (1956). After 50-plus years, the debate is no longer high culture versus low cul­ ture and whether and why kids should be listening to Beethoven instead of Chuck Berry. The debate now is over “high popular culture” versus “low popular culture” and whether and why kids should be listening to the Beatles instead of Britney Spears. 22 Part One: Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty There is much to be critical of as far as the production and consumption of teen culture as there is the production and consumption of adult culture­ and each on its own terms. Teens in the 1960s and 1970s demanded their own counterculture and not the culture of their parents. As adults, they now insist on imposing their youth culture on teenagers in the twenty-first century, exem­ plified in cultural discourses ranging from PBS, Rolling Stone, and School of Rock. The contradiction of the Woodstock generation of the 1960s and the classic rock generation of the 1970s is that they have become the middle-aged Estab­ lishment as much as they wish to define themselves as the older and more sophisticated version of their rebellious anti-Establishment teen essence­ painfully signified by the remaining members of the Who, now in their sixties rather than being part of the 1960s, trotting out “My Generation” at the 2010 Super Bowl halftime show. Almost inevitably, each generation dismisses the teen culture of the subsequent generations while it nostalgically and more des­ perately clings to its own teenage cultural canon well into adulthood. Even though teen culture is a product of specific historical pressures, political ten­ sions, and social conditions, adults insist their particular era of teen culture has a timeless significance that not only defined their generation but should define all generations to come. Pity the poor teenager in the twenty-first century who doesn’t appreciate the eternal quality and metaphysical wisdom of Star Wars or “Stairway to Heaven,” and also pity the poor parent who failed as cultural mentor in the process. It is not that there is “much less of a generation gap” as cultural theorist Bret Michaels would have it. Rather, the generation gap has been obscured by the fact that since the 1950s the popular culture of movies, TV, and popular music- especially rock music- are not only “dominant culture” but main­ stream cultural discourses. The struggle between adolescent autonomy and adult authority remains the central aspect of generational politics. Indeed, the drive to canonize the ge’nerational signifiers of past decades as an authentic and superior culture to the inauthentic and inferior teen culture of the present is as much evidence of this ongoing struggle as any proof it has diminished in the twenty-first century. In this respect, the crisis in American popular culture, to paraphrase Antonio Gramsci, can be assessed as one where “the old refuses to die and the new cannot be born.” 182 Notes- Chapter I out this project, the reader will note that there are no lyrics quoted; a general interpretation or summation of the lyrical message is provided. The concern is how music manufactures “message” rather than lyrics, and lyrics are frequently overemphasized in the discussions of popular music at the expense of textual analysis of music itself. 10. By “stadium rock” (sometimes termed “arena rock),” I am referring to rock bands em­ phasizing a commercial hybrid ofhard rock, heavy metal, and pop. Boston, Foreigner, Lover­ boy, REO Speedwagon, Styx, and especially Journey and Bon Jovi were among the most com­ mercially successful stadium-rock bands of the 1970s and 1980s, but my definition could include Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Van Hafen and the 1980s “hair bands,” such as Poison or Warrant. In this respect, my usage of the term departs from Edward Macao’s definition of “stadium rock” as a North American, commercialized merger of the English heavy metal and progressive rock genres, although stadium-rock bands like Rush, Kansas, and Styx were cer­ tainly influenced by both metal and progressive rock. See Edward Macao, Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 186. Chapter 1 1. Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, ed. J.M. Bernstein (New York: Routledge, 1991), especially “Culture Industry Reconsidered,” 98-106. 2. In this respect, Adorno’s position has been reduced to high culture snobbery. What is often omitted from these criticisms is that Adorno applied his rigorous and frequently acerbic standards of critique to high culture as well as mass culture/popular culture. 3. Theodor W. Adorno, Essays on Music, ed. Richard Leppert, trans. Susan Gillespie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 445. 4. Eileen R. Meehan, Why TV Is Not Our Fault: Television Programming, Viewers, and Who’s Really in Charge (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 54-5. 5. Time Warner and News Corporation are involved in a share ofthe teen culture market. TimeWarner utilizes the CW (originally the WB and later merged with UPN to form the CW) as a niche nenvork for teen dramas ranging from Dawson’s Creek, One Tree Hill, Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, 90210, Hellcats, The Vampire Diaries, etc. News Corporation, owner of FOX, developed early FOX teen dramas like 21 jump Street (which starred the up-and-coming Johnny Depp), Beverly Hills 90210, The O.C. and, most recently, Glee. 6. On Sonny with a Chance, Sonny Monroe (played by Demi Lovato) is a cast member of “So Random!,” which is a parody of Nickelodeon’s now-extinct brand of comedy-variety shows (All That, The Amanda Show). Moreover, an ongoing subplot is that “So Random!” shares their studio with the cast and crew of “McKenzie Falls,” a turgid teen drama. 7. Big Time Rush routinely features a music-video segment in each episode, which also serves as the “official” music video for the song. In the case of Victorious, Victoria Justice music videos are not a part of given episodes, but are very much connected as far as cross­ promotion. The videos are credited to the “Victorious cast, featuring Victoria Justice” and Justice’s co-stars appear in the videos (except “Best Friend’s Brother”). Victorious episodes frequently include musical performances by Tori Vega (played by Justice) and the other char­ acters written into plot lines. Miranda Cosgrove’s pop-music career has largely been separate from iCarly, although the show’s theme song, “Leave It All to Me,” was sung by Cosgrove and released as her first single, and the iCarly episode “iDo” concluded with Carly Shea performing “Shakespeare” at a wedding reception (a song from Cosgrove’ debut CD Sparks Fly). The iCarly-Victorious crossover movie, “iParty with Victorious,” ended with a collective cast per­ formance of a mash-up of”Leave It All to Me” and the Victorious theme song “Make It Shine.” 8. Disney Channel performers generally record for Disney’s subsidiary, Hollywood Records; Nickelodeon partners with Sony Music and its subsidiary Columbia Records for many of its pop-music crossover projects. Exceptions are Jennette McCurdy, a “New Country” teen-pop performer on Capitol Nashville, and Keke Palmer, who is on Interscope Records. The Jonas Brothers went the opposite route and had the teen sitcoms jONAS and its retooled Notes-Chapter 2 183 version JONAS L.A., built around their pop-music stardom (the shows ran on o· Ch 1 from 2008-10). lsney anne 9. Glee soundtrack CDs are produced in partnership between 20th Century-Fox and Co­ lumbia Records. 10. Dave Marsh has been extremely critical of Bono’s political posturing. While this crit­ icism is well deserved, it need also be considered in terms of Marsh’s own championing of Bruce Springsteen as the rock ideal of progressive populism. 11. Norma Coates, “Teenyboppers, Groupies, and Other Grotesques: Girls and Women and Rock Culture in the 1960s and Early 1970s,” journal of Popular Music Studies, val. IS, no.l (2003): 76. 12. As of 2011, the Monkees and Kiss have yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The exclusion from a historic perspective alone is difficult to justify, and suggests more that they are still being “punished” for their dubious pasts. 13. Simon Frith, Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and tl1e Politics of Rock ‘n’ Roll (New York: Pantheon, 1981), 56-7. The underlying issue for Frith {the defense of popular music’s potential to act as oppositional culture) necessarily allies him with the “consumption” side, even as aware as Frith is of capitalism’s determinate role in cultural production. 14. Antonio Artaud, Selected Writings, ed. Susan Sontag, trans. Helen Weaver (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 252. 15. What Malcolm in the Middle and Everybody Hates Chn’s also shared was a representation of the mother as a raging control-monger and the underlying cause of family’s dysfunction. 16. As quoted in Jonathan Dee, “Tween on the Screen,” New York Times {AprilS, 2007). 17. On Victorious, the Hip adult figure is Mr. Sikowitz, the decidedly weird-with-a-beard hippie drama teacher. In “The Bird Scene” (2010), Tori learned she cannot participate in any school play productions until she passes “the Bird Scene” test proctored by Mr. Sikowitz. After failing “the Bird Scene” on her third try, Tori lost her temper and told Mr. Sikowitz that, whether he liked it or not, her version of the Bird Scene was good. As the class burst into applause, Mr. Sikowitz proudly informed Tori she now passed the Bird Scene test. It was not any better or worse than the other versions, but Tori finally owned her performance and considered it a success, no matter what anyone else thought of it. As Mr. Sikowitz told her, “It was only wrong when you asked if it was right” and provided the message that individu­ alism as non-conformity and self-determination are mutually related. 18. The word “chiz” is the standard and frequently used euphemism for “shit” on iCarly and Victorious (“It’s the chiz,” “It’s total chiz,” “It’s serious chiz,” “That sack of chiz,” etc.). 19. Banet- Weiser, 71. Chapter 2 1. Frith, Sound Effects, 24. Emphasis original. 2. Norman Mailer, “The White Negro,” in Advertisements for Myself(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 339. Emphasis added. 3. Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Routledge, 1987), 46-7. 4. Timothy D. Taylor, Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), 169. In this respect, Frith raised a crucial issue in Sound Effects, 23- 32. During the 1960s, folk music effectively replaced country music as the primary white music component of rock and roll, the former considered politically progressive, and the latter politically conservative. What is less satisfactory in Frith’s analysis is situating folk as inherently progressive and country as inherently conservative music, and the 1960s saw what amounted to a more natural synthesis between white and black music, formally and politi­ cally. 5. A remake of Footloose is set for 2011 release. Zac Efron was originally cast in the lead role, but withdrew from the project; he was eventually replaced by professional dancer-actor Kenny Wormald. 6. See also John Waters, “Ladies and Gentleman … The Nicest Kids in Town!” in Crackpot:
Movie Analysis
HWhy Are All the Black Kids Sitti ng , Together in the Cafeteri a?” And Other Conversations About Race Beverly Daniel Tatum~ Ph.D. BBOOKS AMember ofthe Perseus BooksGroup Copyright ©1997byBeverly DanielTatum, Ph.D. 1999 Introduction copyright ©1999byBeverly DanielTatum, Ph.D. Epilogue copyright ©2003 byBeverly DanielTatum, Ph.D. Published byBasic Books, A Member ofthe Perseus BooksGroup All rightsreserved. Printedinthe United States ofAmerica. No part ofthis book maybeused inany manner whatsoever withoutwrittenper­ mission exceptinthe case of brief quotations embodiedin crih-cal’articles and reviews. Forinformation, addressBasicBooks, 387 ParkAvenue South, New York, NY 10016. Designed byPeng Olaguera. Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tatum, Beverly Daniel. “Why areallthe Black kidssitting together inthe cafeteria?” and other conversations aboutrace IBeverly DanielTatum. – rev. ed. p. em. Includes bibliographical referencesandindex. ISBN 0-465-08361-7 1.Afro-Americans-Race identity. 2. Whites-United States-Race identity. 3. Afro-Americans-Psychology. 4. Whites-United States-Psychology. 5.Race awareness-United States. 6.United States-Race relations. I.Title EI85.625.T38 1997 30S.8’00973-dc21 0403/1098765432 4 ——————————————————— Identity Development in Adolescence “Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” Walkintoanyracially mixedhighschool cafeteria atlunch timeand you will instantly notice that in thesea of adolescent faces,there isan identifiable group of Blackstudents sittingtogether. Conversely, it could bepointed out that there aremany groups of White students sitting together as well,though peoplerarely comment aboutthat. The question on thetip of everyone’s tongue is”Why arethe Black kids sitting together?” Principalswanttoknow, teachers want to know,White students want to know,theBlack students who aren’tsit­ tingatthe table want toknow. How does ithappen that so manyBlack teenagers end upatthe same cafeteria table? They don’tstart out there. If youwalk into racially mixedelementary schools,youwill often seeyoung children of diverse racialbackgrounds playing with oneanother, sittingatthe snack tabletogether, crossingracialboundaries with anease uncom­ mon in adolescence. Movingfromelementary schooltomiddle school (often atsixth orseventh grade)meansinteracting with new children fromdifferent neighborhoods thanbefore, andacertain degree of clustering byrace might therefore beexpected, presuming that children who arefamiliar withoneanother wouldformgroups. Buteven inschools wherethesame children stay together from kindergarten througheighthgrade,racialgrouping beginsbythe sixth or seventh grade. What happens? One thingthathappens ispuberty. As children enteradolescence, they begin to explore thequestion of identity, asking “Who am I? Who canIbe?” in ways theyhave not done before. ForBlack youth, 52 Identity Development inAdolescence 53 asking “Who am !?”includes thinking about “Who am Iethnically and/or racially? What does itmean tobe Black?” As Iwrite this, Ican hear the voice of aWhite woman who asked me,”Well, alladolescents struggle with questions of identity. They all becomemoreself-conscious abouttheirappearance andmore con­ cerned about what theirpeers think. So what issodifferent forBlack kids?” Of course, she isrightthat all adolescents lookatthemselves in new ways,hutnot all adolescents thinkabout themselves inracial terms. The search forpersonal identity that intensifies inadolescence can involve severaldimensions of an adolescent’s life:vocational plans, religious beliefS, valuesandpreferences, politicalaffiliations and beliefS ..genderroles,andethnic identities. The process of exploration may v~ry. acrosstheseidentity domains. JamesMarcia described four identity “statuses” to characterize thevariation in the identity search process: (1) diffuse, astate inwhich therehasbeen litdeexploration or active consideration of aparticular domain, and nopsychological commitment; (2) foreclosed, astate inwhich acommitment has been made toparticular roles or beliefsystems, oftenthose selected bypar­ ents, without actively considering alternatives; (3) moratorium, astate of active exploration of rolesandbeliefs in which no commitment has yetbeen made; and (4) achieved, astate of strong personal commit­ ment toaparticular dimension of identityfollowing aperiod of high exploration. 1 An individual isnot likely toexplore all identity domains atonce, therefore it isnot unusualforanadolescent to be actively exploring one dimension while another remainsrelatively unexamined. Given the impact of dominant andsubordinate status,itis not surprising .that researchers havefound thatadolescents of color aremore likely to be actively engaged inan exploration of their racial or ethnic identity than are White adolescents. 2 Why doBlack youths, in particular, thinkabout themselves in terms of race?Because that is how therest of theworld thinks of them. Our self-perceptions are shaped by themessages that we receive 54 Underslanding Blackness inaWhile Conlexl fromthose around us,and when young Black men and women enter adolescence, theracial content of thosemessages intensifies. Acase in point: Ifyou were to ask my ten-year-old son,David, todescribe him­ self, he would tellyou many things: that he issmart,that he likesto play computer games,that he hasanolder brother. Near thetop of hislist, hewould likelymention that he istallforhisage. He would probably not mention that he is Black,though he certainly knows that he is.Why would he mention hisheight and not hisracial group membership? When David meets new adults, one of thefirst ques­ tions they ask is”How old are you?”When Davidstateshisage, the inevitable reply is”Gee, you’re tall foryour age!” It happens sofre­ quently thatI once overheard David say tosomeone, “Don’t say it, I know. I’m tallfor my age.” Height issalient forDavid because it is salientforothers. When David meets new adults, theydon’t say, “Gee, you’re Black for your age!” Ifyouaresaying toyourself, of course theydon’t, think again. Imagine David at fifteen,six-foot-two, wearingtheadolescent attire of the day, passing adults he doesn’t know on thesidewalk. Do the women hold their purses alittle tighter, maybeevencross the street toavoid him?Does he hearthesound of the automatic door locks on cars ashe passes by? Ishe being followed aroundbythe secu­ rity guards -at thelocal mall? As hestops intown withhis new bicy­ cle, does apolice officer hasslehim,asking where he gotit,implying that itmight be stolen? Do strangers assume he playsbasketball? Each of theseexperiences conveysaracial message. Atten, race isnot yet salient forDavid, because it isnot yetsalient forsociety. But itwill be. Understanding Racial Identity Development Psychologist WilliamCross,author of Shades In the first stage, theBlack childabsorbs many of the beliefS and values of the dominant White culture, including theidea thatit isbet­ terto be White. The stereotypes, omissions,anddistortions thatrein­ force notions of White superiority arebreathed inby Black children as well as White. Simply as afunction of being socialized ina Eurocentric culture,someBlack children maybegin tovalue thetole models, lifestyles, and im~ges of beautyrepresented bythe dominant group morehigWy thacithose of their owncultural group. On the otherhand, ifBlack parents are whatIcall race-conscious-that is, actively seeking toencourage positiveracialidentity by providing their children with positive culturalimagesandmessages aboutwhat itmeans to be Black-the impact of thedominant society’smessages are reduced. 4Ineither case,inthe pre-encounter stage,thepersonal and social significance of one’sracial group membership has not yet been realized,andracial identity isnot yetunder examination. At age ten,David andother children like him wouldseemto be inthe pre­ encounter stage. When theenvironmental cueschange andtheworld begins toreflect hisBlackness backto him more clearly, hewill prob­ ably enter theencounter stage. Transition tothe encounter stage istypicallyprecipitated byan event orseries of events thatforce the young person toacknowledge the personal impact of racism. fu theresult of anew and heightened awareness of thesignificance of race, theindividual beginstograpple with what itmeans to be amember of agroup targeted by racism. Though Crossdescribes thisprocess as one that unfolds in lateado­ lescence andearly adulthood, researchsuggests thatanexamination of one’s racial or ethnic” identity may begin asearly asjunior highschool. Inastudy of Black and White eighth graders fromanintegrated urban junior high school, JeanPhinney andSteve Tarver foundclear 56 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context evidenceforthe beginning of the search process inthis dimension of identity. Among theforty-eight participants, morethanathird had thought abouttheeffects of ethnicity on their future, haddiscussed theissues with family and friends, andwere attempting tolearn more about theirgroup. While White students in thisintegrated school were alsobeginning tothink about ethnic identity, there was evidence tosuggest amore active search among Blackstudents, especially Black females. SPhinney andTarver’s research is consistent with my own study of Blackyouth inpredominantly White communities, where theenvironmental cuesthattrigger anexamination of racial identity often become evident inmiddle school or juniorhighschoo1. 6 Some of theenvironmental cues are institutionalized. Though manyelementary schoolshaveself-contained classroomswherechil­ dren of varying performance levelslearntogether, manymiddle and secondary schoolsuse”ability grouping:’ or tracking. Though school administrators oftendefend theirtracking practices as fairand objec­ tive, there usually isarecognizable racialpattern to how children are assigned, which oftenrepresents thesystem of advantage operatingin theschools.’ Inracially mixedschools, Blackchildren are much more likely tobe inthe lower trackthaninthe honors track.Suchappar­ entsorting along raciallines sends amessage aboutwhatitmeans to be Black. One younghonors student Iinterviewed describedthe irony of thisresegregation in what was an otherwise integrated envi­ ronment,andhinted atthe identity issuesitraised forhim. Itwas really avery paradoxical existence,hereIam ina school that’s35percent Black, yO! know,and I’m the only Black inmy classes …. That always struck me as odd.Iguess Ifelt that I was different fromtheother Blacks because of that. In addition tothe changes takingplacewithin school, thereare changes inthe social dynamics outsideschool.Formany parents, puberty raisesanxiety aboutinterracial dating. In raciallymixed com- Identity Development inAdolescence 57 munities, you begin to see what Icall thebirthday partyeffect.Young children’s birthdaypartiesinmultiracial communities are oftena reflection of the community’s diversity. The parties of elementary school children maybesegregated bygender but not by race. At puberty, when the parties become sleepovers or boy”girl events, they become lessand lessracially diverse. , Blackgirls,especially in predominandy White communities, may gradually become aware thatsomething haschanged. When their White friends start to date, theydonot. The issues of emerging sex­ uality andthesocietal messages about who issexuallydesirable leave young Blackwomen inavery devalued position. One youngwoman from aPhiladelphia suburbdescribed herself as”pursuing White guys throughout highschool” to no avail. Since therewere no Black boys in her class,shehad litde choice. She would feel”really pissed off” thatthose same White boys would date her White friends. Forher, “that prom thingwaslike out of the question.”8 Though Black girlsliving in thecontext of alarger Black com­ munity mayhave more social choices, theytoohave tocontend with devaluing messagesabout who theyare and who they willbecome, especially ifthey are poor or working-class. As social scientists Bonnie RossLeadbeater and Niobe Way point out, The schooldrop-out, the teenage welfaremother, the drug addict, and thevictim of domestic violence or of AIDSare among themost prevalent publicimages of poor and working-class urbanadolescent girls …. Yet, despitetherisks inherent in economic disadvantage, the majority of poor urbanadeolescent girls do not fitthe stereotypes that are madeabout them. 9 Resisting thestereotypes and affirming other definitions of them­ selves ispart of the task facing young Black women in both White andBlack communities. As wasillustrated in theexample of David, Blackboysalsoface a 58 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context devaluedstatusinthe wider world. The all too familiar mediaimage of ayoung Blackman with his hands cuffed behind hisback, arrested foraviolent crime, has primed manyto view young Black men withsuspicion and fear. In thecontext of predominandy White schools,however, Blackboysmayenjoy adegree of social success, par­ ticularly iftheyareathletically talented. The culture has embracedthe Black athlete, andtheyoung man who canfulfill thatrole is often pursued byBlack girlsand White girlsalike. But even these young men will encounter experiences that maytrigger an examination of their racial identity. Sometimes theexperience isquite dramatic. The Autobiography of Malcolm X isaclassic tale of racialidentity development, andIassign itto my psychology of racism students forjust that reason. As ajunior highschool student, Malcolm was astar. Despite the fact that he was separated fromhisfamily andliving inafoster home, hewas anAstu­ dent andwas elected president of his class. One day he hadaconver­ sation with his English teacher, whom heliked andrespected, about his futurecareergoals.Malcolm saidhewanted to be alawyer. His teacher responded, “That’snorealistic goalforanigger,” andadvised him to consider carpentry instead. 10The messagewasclear: You are a Black male,yourracial group membership matters,planaccordingly. Malcolm’s emotionalresponse was typical-anger, confusion,and alienation. He withdrewfromhis White classmates, stoppedpartici­ pating in class, and eventually lefthispredominately whiteMichigan home tolive with his sister in Roxbury, aBlack community in Boston. No teacher would say suchathing now,youmay be thinking: but don’t be sosure. Itiscertainly less likely thatateacher wouldusethe word nigger, but consider thesecontemporary examplessharedby highschool students. Ayoung ninth-grade student was sittingin his homeroom. Asubstitute teacher was in charge of the class. Because themajority of students fromthisschool goontocollege, sheused the free time to ask thestudents abouttheircollege plans. As asub­ stitute shehad very limited information abouttheiracademic perfor- Identity Development inAdolescence 59 mance,butsheoffered somesuggestions. When sheturned tothis young man,one of fewBlack malesinthe class, she suggested that he consideracommunity college.Shehadrecommended four-year collegesto the other students. LikeMalcolm, thisstudent gotthe message. Inanother example, a young Black woman attending- adese,gre­ gatedschool to which she was bussed was encouraged bya teacherto attend theupcoming schooldance.Most of theBlack students did not liveinthe neighborhood andseldom attended theextracurricu­ laractivities. The young woman indicated thatshewasn’t planning to come. The well-intentioned teacherwaspersistent. Finallytheteacher said, “Oh come on,I know you people lovetodance.” Thisyoung woman got themessage, too. Coping with Encounters: Developing an Dppositionalldentity Whatdothese encounters havetodo with thecafeteria? Do experi­ ences with racism inevitably resultinso-called self-segregation? While certainly adesire toprotect oneselffromfurther offense is understandable, it isnot theonly factor atwork. Imagine theyoung eighth-grade girl who experiencedtheteacher’s use of “you people” and thedancing stereotype as aracial affront. Upsetandstruggling with adolescent embarrassment, shebumps intoaWhite friend who canseethat something is wrong. Sheexplains. Her White friend responds, inan effort tomake herfeel better perhaps, and says, “Oh, Mr.Smith is such anice guy, I’m sure he didn’t meanitlike that. Don’t be sosensitive.” PerhapstheWhite friend is right,and Mr. Smith didn’tmean it, butimagine your own response when you are upset,perhaps withaspouse or partner. He or she asks what’s wrong and you explain whyyouareoffended.Your partnerbrushes off your complaint, attributing itto your being oversensitive. Whathappens to your emotional thermostat? It escalates. When feelings,rationalor irrational, areinvalidated, mostpeople disengage. They not only choosetodiscontinue theconversation but are morelikely toturn to 60 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context someone who will understandtheirperspective. In much thesame way, the eighth-grade girl’sWhite frienddoesn’t get it. Shedoesn’t seethe significance of this racial message, butthe girls atthe “Black table”do. When shetells herstory there, one of them islikelyto say, “Youknow what,Mr.Smith saidthesame thing tome yesterday!” Not only are Black adolescents encountering racism andreflecting on their identity, but their White peers, even when they are not the perpetrators (andsometimes theyare),areunprepared to respond insupportive ways. The Blackstudents turn toeach other for the much needed support theyare not likely tofind anywhere else. Ill’ adolescence, as racebecomes personally salientforBlack youth, finding theanswer toquestions such as, “What does itmeanto be ayoung Blackperson? How should Iact? What should Ido?” is particularly important. And althoughBlackfathers, mothers, aunts,. and uncles mayhold theanswers byoffering. themselves as role mod­ els, theyhold little appeal formost adolescents. The lastthing many fourteen-year-olds wanttodo isto grow up to be like their parents. It isthe peer group, thekids in the cafeteria, who hold theanswers to these questions. They know how to be Black. They haveabsorbed the stereotypical images of Blackyouth inthe popular cultureandare reflecting thoseimages intheir self-presentation. Based on theirfieldwork inU.S. high schools, Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu identified a common psychological patternfound among African American highschool students atthis stage of iden­ titydevelopment.” They observed thattheanger andresentment that adolescents feel in responsetotheir growing awareness of thesys­ tematic exclusion of Blackpeople fromfullparticipation inU.S. soci­ ety leads tothe development of anoppositional socialidentity. This oppositional stance both protectsone’sidentity fromthepsychologi­ cal assault of racism andkeeps thedominant groupatadistance. Fordham and Ogbu write: Subordinate minoritiesregardcertain forms of behav­ ior and certain activities orevents, symbols, and mean- Identity Development inAdolescence 61 ings as not appropriate for them because those behaviors, events,symbols, andmeanings are characteristic of white Americans. At thesame timethey emphasize other forms of behavior as more appropriate for them becausethese are not apart of white Americans’ way of life. Tobehave inthe manner defined as fallingwithin a white cultural frame of reference is to “act white” and is negatively sanctioned. 12 Certainstyles of speech,dress,andmusic, forexample, maybe embraced as “authentically Black”andbecome highlyvalued, while attitudes andbehaviors associated withWhites are viewed with dis­ dain. The peergroups’s evaluation of what isBlackandwhat isnot can have apowerful impact on adolescent behavior. Reflecting on her highschool years, one Black woman froma White neighborhood described both thepain of being rejected by herBlack classmates andherattempts toconform toher peer’s defi­ nition of Blackness: “Oh you sound White, youthink you’re White,” they said. And the idea of sounding White was just soabsurd to me …. So ninth grade wassort of traumatic in that Istarted listening torap music, which Ireally just don’t like. [Isaid] I’m gonna be Black, anditwas just that stu­ pid. But it’s more thanjust how oneacts, you know:. [The other Black women there] were not into me for the longest time. My firstyear there was hell. Sometimes theemergence of an oppositional identity canbe quite dramatic. as theyoung person tries on anew persona almost overnight. Atthe end of one school year, race may nothave appeared to be significant, butoften some encounter takes placeoverthesum­ mer andtheyoung person returns toschool muchmoreaware of his or her Blackness andready tomake surethattherest of the 62 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context world isaware of it, too.There isacertain “inyour face” quality that theseadolescents cantake on,which theirteachers oftenexperience as threatening. When agroup of Black teensaresitting together in the cafeteria, collectively embodying an oppositional stance,school administrators wantto know not only why they are sitting together, butwhat can be done toprevent it. We need tounderstand that inracially mixedsettings, racial grouping isadevelopmental processinresponse toan environmental stressor, racism.Joining with one’speers forsupport inthe face of stress is apositive copingstrategy. What is problematic is thatthe young people areoperating withavery limited definition of whatit means to be Black,basedlargely on cultural stereotypes. Oppositionalldentily Development and Academic Achievement Unfortunately forBlack teenagers, thosecultural stereotypes do not usuallyinclude academic achievement. Academicsuccess is more oftenassociated withbeing White. During theencounter phase of racialidentity development, when thesearch foridentity leads toward culturalstereotypes and away fromanything thatmight beassociated with Whiteness, academicperformance oftendeclines. Doing wellin school becomes identified astryingtobeWhite. Beingsmartbecomes the opposite of being cool. While this frame of reference is not universally foundamong adolescents ofAfrican descent, it iscommonly observedinBlack peer groups. Among theBlack college students Ihave interviewed, many describedsomeconflict oralienation fromother African American teens because of theiracademic successinhigh school. Forexample, atwenty-year-old femalefromaWashington, nc., suburb explained: Itwas weird,eveninhigh school alot of the Black stu­ dentswere,like,”Well, you’re not reallyBlack.”Whether it was because Ibecame president of thesixth-grade class orwhatever itwas, itstarted prettymuchback Identity Development inAdolescence 63 then.Junior high,itgot worse. I was then labeled cer­ tainthings, whether itwas”the area” orIwasn’t really Black. Others described avoidingsituations thatwould setthem apart from theirBlack peers.Forexample, oneyoung woman declined to participate inagifted program inher school because· sheknew it would separate her fromtheother Black students inthe school. In astudy of thirty-three eleventh-graders in aWashington, nc., school, Fordham and Ogbu foundthat·although some of thestudents had once been academically successful,few of themremained so. These students alsoknew thatto be identified as a”hrainiac” would result in peer rejection. The few students who hadmaintained strong academicrecordsfoundwaystoplay down theiracademic success enoughtomaintain somelevel of acceptance amongtheirBlack peers. 13 Academically successfulBlackstudents also needastrategy tofind acceptance amongtheirWhite classmates. Fordhamdescribesone suchstrategy as racelessness, wherein individuals assimilateintothe dominant groupbyde-emphasizing characteristicsthatmight iden­ tify them as members of the subordinate group.” Jon, ayoung manI interviewed, offeredaclassic example of thisstrategy as he described hisapproach todealing with his discomfort atbeing theouly Black person inhis advanced classes. He said, “At no point didIever think I was White or did Iever want to be White …. Iguess itwas one of those things where Itried tode-emphasize thefact that I was Black.” This strategy ledhim toavoid activities thatwere associated with Blackness. He recalled, “I didn’t wanttodo anything that was tradi­ tionally Black,likeInever played basketball. Iran cross-country …. I went fordistance running instead of sprints.” He felt he hadtoshow his White classmates thatthere were”exceptions to all thesestereo­ types.” However, thisstrategy was of limitedusefulness. When he trav­ eledoutside his home community withhis White teammates, he sometimes encountered overtracism. “I quickly realized thatI’m 64 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Conlexl Black,andthat’s thething thatthey’re goingtosee first, no matter how much Itry tode-emphasize myBlackness.” A Black student canplay down Black identity in ordertosucceed in school and mainstream institutionswithoutrejecting his BI~ck identity and culture. ‘S Instead of becoming raceless, an achieving Blackstudent canbecome an emissary, someone who seeshis or her own achievements as advancing thecause of the racial group. For example, socialscientists RichardZweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff describe how asuccessful Blackstudent, inresponse tothe accusation of acting White, connected hisachievement tothat of other Black men by saying, “Martin LutherKing IT..ust not have been Black,then,since hehad adoctoral degree,andMalcolm Xmust not have been Black sinceheeducated himselfwhileinprison.” In addi­ tion, hedemonstrated his loyalty tothe Black community bytaking an openly political stanceagainst theracial discrimination heobserved in hisschool. 16 Itisclear thatanoppositional identitycaninterfere with acade­ mic achievement, andit may be tempting foreducators toblame the adolescents themselvesfortheir academic decline.However, theques­ tions thateducators andother concerned adultsmust ask are, How didacademic achievement becomedefined as exclusively White behavior? What isitabout thecurriculum andthewider culture that reinforces thenotion thatacademic excellence isanexclusively White domain? Whatcurricular interventions might we usetoencourage the development of anempowered emissaryidentity? An oppositional identity that disdainsacademic achievement has not always beenacharacteristic of Black adolescent peergroups. It seems tobe apost-desegregation phenomenon.Historically,the oppositional identity foundamong African Americans inthe segre­ gated South included apositive attitudetowardeducation. While Black people mayhave publicly deferred toWhites, theyactively encouraged theirchildren topursue education as aticket togreater freedom.” WhileBlackparents stillseeeducation as the key to upward mobility, intoday’s desegregated schoolsthemodels of suc- Identity Development inAdolescence 65 cess-the teachers,administrators, andcurricular heroes-are almost always White. Black Southern schools,thoughstigmatized bylegally sanctioned segregation, wereoften staffed by African American educators, them­ selvesvisible models of academic achievement. These Blackeducators mayhave presented acurriculum thatincluded references tothe intellectuallegaey of other African Americans. Aswell, inthe context of asegregated school,it was agiven thatthehigh achieving students would allbe Black.Academic achievementdid not havetomean sep­ aration fromone’s Black peers. The Search for Alternative Images Thishistorical examplereminds us thatanoppositional identitydis­ couraging academicachievement is notinevitable eveninaracist society. Ifyoung people are exposed toimages of Mrican American academic achievement intheir early years, theywon’t havetodefine school achievement as something forWhites only. They will know that there isalong history of Black intellectual achievement. This point wasmade quiteeloquently byJon, theyoung manI quoted earlier. Though he madethechoice toexcel inschool, he labored underthefalse assumption that he was”inventing the wheel.” It wasn’tuntil he reached collegeandhad theopportunity to take African American studiescourses that he learned aboutotherAfrican Americans besidesMartin LutherKing,Malcolm X,and Frederick Douglass-the same three men he hadheard about yearafter year, from kindergarten to highschoolgraduation. As hereflected on his identity struggle inhigh school, he said: It’s like I went through threephases …. My firstphase was being cool, doing whatever wasparticularly cool forBlack people at the time,andthat was like in junior high. Then inhigh school, you·know, Ithought being Black was basically all stereotypes, so I tried toavoid all 66 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context of thosethings. Now incollege, youknow, Irealize that being Black means avariety of things. Learning hishistory in college was of great psychological impor­ tance toJon, providing him with rolemodels he hadbeen missing in high school. He was particularly inspiredbylearning of the intellec­ tual legacy of Black men athis own college: When you look atthose guys who werehereinthe Twenties, theycouldn’t live on campus. They couldn’t eat on campus. They couldn’t get theirhair cu.t intown. And yet they were allPhi Beta Kappa …. That’s what being Black really is, youknow, knowing who youare, your history, youraccomplishments …. When Iwas in junior high, Ihad White role models. And then when I got into high school, youknow, Iwasn’t sure but Ijust didn’t thinkhaving White rolemodels was agood thing. SoIgot rid of those. AndIbasically just,you know, onlyhadmyparents forrole models. Ikind of grew upthinking that we were on the cutting edge.We were doing something radicallydifferent thanevery­ body else.And not realizing thatthere areallkinds of Black people doingthevery things thatIthought we were theonly onesdoing …. You’ve gottodo the very best youcansothat you cancontinue thegreat tradi­ tionsthathave already been established. This young manwasnotalone inhis frustration overhaving learned littleabout his own cultural historyingrade school. Time and again inthe research interviews Iconducted, Blackstudents lamented theabsence of courses inAfrican American historyorliter­ ature atthe high school levelandindicated how significant this new learning was tothem incollege, how excited andaffirmed theyfelt by this newfound knowledge. Sadly, manyBlack students nevergetto Identity Development inAdolescence 67 college,alienated fromtheptocess of education longbefore high school graduation. They maynever getaccess tothe information that mighthavehelped themexpand theirdefinition of what itmeans to be Black and,inthe ptocess, mighthavehelped them stayinschool. Young people aredevelopmentally readyforthis information inado­ lescence. Weought toprovide it. NDt at the Table As we have seen, Jon felt he had to distance himselffromhisBlack peers in order tobe successful in high school. He was one of thekids not sitting at the Black _table. Continued encounters with racismand access to new culturally relevantinformation empowered him togive up his racelessness and become anemissary. Incollege, not only did hesitatthe Black table,but he emerged as acampus leader,confident in the support of hisBlack peers. Hisexample illustrates thatone’s presence at theBlack table is often an expression of one’sidentity development, which evolves overtime. Some Blackstudents may not bedevelopmentally readyforthe Black table injunior or senior highschool. They may not yethave had their own encounters with racism, andrace may not be very salient forthem. Just aswedon’t allreach puberty andbegin developing sex­ ualinterest atthe same time,racial identity development unfoldsin idiosyncratic ways. Though my researchsuggeststhatadolescence isa common time, one’s own lifeexperiences are also important deter­ minants ofthe”timing.The young person whose racialidentity devel­ opment is out of synch with his or herpeers oftenfeelsinan awk­ ward position. Adolescents are notoriously egocentricandassume that their experience isthe same as everyone else’s.Just as girls who have become interested inboys become disdainful of theirfriends still interested indolls, theBlack teens who areatthe table canbequite judgmental towardthose who arenot. “If! think it isasign of authen­ tic Blackness tosit atthis table, thenyoushould too.” The young Black men and women who stillhang around with 68 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context the White classmatestheymayhave known since earlychildhood will often besnubbed bytheir Black peers.Thisdynamic is particularly apparent in regional schoolswherechildren fromavariety of neigh­ borhoods arebrought together. When Blackchildren frompredomi­ nandy White neighborhoods gotoschool withBlack children from predominandy Blackneighborhoods, theformer group is often viewed as trying to be White bythe latter group. Weallspeak thelan­ guage of the streets welive on.Black children livingin White neigh­ borhoods oftensound White totheir Black peersfromacross town, andmay be teased because of it.This canbeavery painful experi­ ence,particularly when theyoung person isnot fully accepted aspart of the White peer groupeither. One young Blackwoman fromapredominandy White commu­ nity described exactlythissituation in aninterview. Inaschool with a lot of racial tension, Terri felt that”the worst thingthathappened” was the rejection sheexperienced fromthe other Black children who werebeing bussed to her school. Though shewanted to be friends with them,theyteased her,calling heran”orea cookie” and some­ timesbeating herup. The only close Black friend Terrihadwas abira­ cial girl from her neighborhood. Racial tensions alsoaffected herrelationships with White stu­ dents. One White friend’sparentscommented, “I can’tbelieve you’re Black.You don’tseemlikeallthe Black children.You’re nice.”Though otherparents madesimilar comments, Terrireported thather White friends didn’tstart making them until junior highschool, when Terri’s Blackness becamesomething to be explained. One friendintroduced Terri toanother Whitegirl by saying, “She’s not reallyBlack, shejust went to Florida andgotareally dark tan.” A White sixth-grade “boyfriend” becameembarrassed when hisfriends discovered hehad a crush on aBlack girl. He stopped tellingTerri how prettyshewas, and instead calledher”nigger” andsaid, “Your lipsaretoo big. Idon’t want tosee you. Iwon’t heyour friend anymore.” Despite supportive parents who expressedconcernabouthersit­ uation, Terrisaidshe was a”very depressed child.” Her fatherwould Identity Development inAdolescence 69 haveconversations withher “about being Black andbeautiful” and about “the union of people of colorthathadalways existed thatI needed tofind. And the pride.” However, herparents did not havea network of Black friends tohelp support her. It was theintetvention of aBlack juniot high school teacher that Terri feels helped her the most. Mrs.Campbell “reallyexposed me to the good Black community becauseI was so down on it”by getting Terri involved insinging gospelmusicandintroducing hertoother Black students who would accept her.”That’s when Istarted having other Blackfriends. And Ithank her a lot for that.” The significant rolethatMrs. Campbell playedinhelping Terri openupillustrates theconstructive potentialthatinformed adultscan have in the identity development process.Sherecognized Terri’s need forasame-race peergroup andhelped herfind one.Talking togroups of Black students aboutthevariety of living situations Blackpeople come from and theunique situation facingBlackadolescents in White communities helpstoexpand thedefinition of what itmeans to be Black andincreases intragroup acceptance at atime when that isquite important. Forchildren inTerri’s situation, it isalsohelpful forBlack parents toprovide ongoing opportunities fortheir children toconnect with other Black peerseven ifthatmeans traveling outsidethe commu­ nitythey livein.Race-conscious parentsoftendothis byattending a Blackchurch ormaintaining tiestoBlack socialorganizations such as JackandJill. Parents who make thiseffort oftenfindthattheir chil­ dren become bicultural, abletomove comfortably betweenBlackand White communities, andable tosit atthe Black table when theyare ready. Implied inthis discussion istheassumption thatconnecting with one’s Black peersinthe process of identity development isimportant and should be encouraged. Foryoung Blackpeople livinginpre­ dominantly Blackcommunities, suchconnections occursponta­ neously withneighbors andclassmates andusually do not require spe­ cial encouragement. However,for young peopleinpredominantly 70 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context White communitiestheymay only occur with active parental inter­ vention. One might wonder ifthissocial connection isreally neces­ sary. If ayoung person has foundaniche among acircle of White friends, isit really necessary toestablish aBlack peergroup as arefer­ ence point? Eventually itis. As one’sawareness of thedaily challenges of living in aracist soci­ ety increase, it isimmensely helpfultobe able toshare one’sexperi­ ences with others who have lived it.Even when White friends are willing andable tolisten andbear witness toone’s struggles, theycan­ not really sharetheexperience. One young woman came tothis real­ ization inher senior year of highschool: [The isolation] neverreallybothered me untilabout senior yearwhen I was theonly oneinthe class …. That little burden, thatconstant burden of youalways having tostrive to do yourbestand show thatyou can do just as much as everybody else.Your White friends can’t understand that,and it’s really hard to communi­ cate to them. Only someone else of thesame racial, sameethnic background wouldunderstand something like that. When one isfaced with what Chester Pierce calls the”mundane extreme environmental stress” of racism,inadolescence or inadult­ hood, theability tosee oneself as part of alarger group from which one candraw support isan important coping strategy. ISIndividuals who do not havesuch astrategy available to them becausetheydo not experience ashared identity with atleast some subset of their racial group are at riskforconsiderable socialisolation. Of course. who we perceive as sharing ouridentity maybeinflu­ enced byother dimensions of identity such as gender,social class, geographical location,skincolor. orethnicity. Forexample, research indicatesthatfirst-generation Blackimmigrants fromtheCaribbean tend toemphasize theirnational originsandethnic identities, dis- Identity Development inAdolescence 71 tancingthemselves from u.s. Blacks,dueinpart totheir belief that West Indians are viewed morepositively by Whites thanthose American Blackswhosefamilyrootsinclude theexperience of u.s. slavery. Torelinquish one’sethnic identity asWestIndian andtake on an Mrican American identitymaybeunderstood as downward so~ial mobility. However, second-generation WestIndians without an iden­ tifiable accentmaylosetherelative ethnicprivilege theirparents experienced andseek racial solidarity with Black American peersin the face of encounters with racism. 19Whether itisthe experience of being followed in storesbecause theyaresuspected of shoplifting, see­ ingpeople respond tothem with fear on thestreet, orfeeling over­ looked in school,Blackyouth canbenefit fromseeking support from those who havehadsimilar experiences. An Alternative to the Cafeteria Table The developmental needtoexplore themeaning of one’s identity with others who are engaged inasimilar process manifests itself informally inschool corridors andcafeterias acrossthecountry. Some educational institutionshavesought to meet this need progranunati­ cally. Severalcolleagues andIrecently evaluated onesuch effort, ini­ tiated ataMassachusetts middleschoolparticipating inavoluntary desegregation program known as theMetropolitan Councilfor Educational Opportunity (METCO) program.'” Historically,the smallnumber of African American students who are bussedfrom Bostontothis suburban schoolhaveachieved disappointing levels of academicsuccess.Inan effort toimprove academic achievement, the school introduced aprogram, known as Student Efficacy Training (SET)thatallowed Bostonstudents tomeet eachday as agroup with two staff members. Instead of being in physicaleducation or home economics or studyhall,they were meeting, talkingabouthomework difficulties, socialissues, andencounters with racism. The meeting was mandatory and at firstthestudents wereresentful of missing some of theirclasses. But theimpact wasdramatic. Said one young woman, 72 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context In thebeginning of the year, Ididn’t wanttodo SET at all. Ittook away mystudy andit was only METCO stu­ dents doing it. In thebeginning all we didwas argue over certain problems or itwas more likea rap session and Ididn’t thinkitwas helping anyone. But then when welooked atrecords … Iknow that lastyear out of all the students, sixththrough eighthgrade,therewas,like, six who were actually goodstudents. Everyone else,it was just pathetic, Imean, like,they were getting likeDs and Fs…. The eighth grade isdoing much betterthis year. Imean, they went fromDsand Fs to Bs and Cs and occasional As …. And those seventh-graders are doingreallygood, theyhave a lot of honor rollstudents in seventh grade, both guysandgirls. Yeah,· it’sbeen good. It’sreally good. Her report isborne out by anexamination of school records. The opportunity tocome together inthe company of supportive adults allowed theseyoung Blackstudents to talk abouttheissues that hin­ dered their performance-racial encounters, feelings of isolation,test anxiety,homework dilemmas-in thepsychological safety of their own group.Inthe process, thepeer culture changed toone that sup­ ported academic performance ratherthanundermined it, as revealed in these two students’ comments: Well,a lot of theBoston students, theboys andthegirls, used tofight allthe time. And now, theystopped yelling at each other so much and calling each other stupid. It’s like we’ve allbecome likeonebigfamily, we share things more with eachother. Wetease each other like brother andsister. Welook out foreach other with homework andstuff. Wealways stay on top of each other’ cause we know it’s hard with African American Identity Development inAdolescence 73 students to go to apredominantly White school and try to succeed with everybody else. The faculty,too,were veryenthusiastic aboutthe outcomes of the intervention, as seen in the comments of these two classroom teachers: This ptogram hasprobably produced the most dra­ matic result of any single change that I’veseen at this school. It has produced immediate resultsthataffected behavior andacademics andparticipation in school life. My students are more engaged. They aren’tbattling out alot of theissues of their anger about being in aWhite community, cominginfrom Boston, wheredoI fit, I don’t belong here. Ifeel that those issues thatoften came out in class aren’t coming out in classanymore. I think theyare being discussed in the SET room, the kids feel more confidence. The kids’ grades arehigher, the homework response isgreater, they’re not afraid to participate in class,andIdon’t see them isolating them­ selves within class. They are willing to sit with other students happily …. Ithink it’s made avery positive impact on theirplace inthe school and on their indi­ vidual self-esteem. Isee them enjoying themselves and able to enjoy all of us as individuals. Ican’t say enough, it’s been the best thing that’shappened to the METCO program as far as I’mconcerned. 21 Although thisintervention isnot amiracle cureforevery school, itdoes highlight what can happen when we think about the devel­ opmental needs of Blackadolescents coming to terms with their own sense of identity. Itmight seem counterintuitive thata school involved in avoluntary desegregation programcouldimprove both academic performance andsocial relationships among students by separating the 74 Understanding Blackness inaWhite Context Blackstudents forone period every day. But ifwe understand the unique challenges facingadolescents of colorandthelegitimate need they have tofeel supported intheir identiry development, itmakes perfect sense. Though theymay not usethelanguage of racial identity devel­ opment theorytodescribe it, most Black parents wanttheirchildren toachieve an internalized sense of personalsecurity,tohe able to acknowledge thereality of racism andtorespond effectively toit. Our educational institutionsshould do whattheycantoencourage this development ratherthanimpede it. When Italk toeducators about theneed toprovide adolescents with identity-affirming experiences andinformation abouttheirowncultural groups,theysometimes flounder because this information has notbeen part of their own education. Their understanding of adolescent development has been limitedtothe White middle-class normsincluded inmost textbooks, their knowledge of Black history limited toMartin LutherKing,]r., and Rosa Parks. They sometimes say with frustration thatparents should provide this kind of education for their children. Unfortunately Blackparents oftenattended thesame schools the teachers didand have thesame informational gaps.Weneed to acknowledge thatanimportant part of interrupting thecycle of oppression isconstant re-education, andsharing what we learn with thenext generation. 248 Notes 18. L.Derman-Sparksandthe ABC Task Force, Anti-bias curriculum: 7001s for cmpowcriug young children (Washington, DC: National Association forthe Education of Young Children, 1989). 19. Ibid.,p.77. Chapler 4 1. J.Marcia, “Development andvalidation of ego identity status,” jOHntal r1 Personality and Social Psychology 3(1966): 551-58. 2. For areview of the research on ethnic identity in adolescents, see J. Phinney, “Ethnic identity in adolescents and adults: Review of research,” Psychological Bulletin 108,no.3(1990): 499-514. See also “Part I:Identity development” in B.J.R. Leadbeater and N. Way (Eds.), Urban girls: Resisting stereotypes, creating idclltities (New York: New York University Press, 1996). 3. W. E. Cross, Jr., Shades if Black: Diversity in African-American identity (Philadelphia:Temple UniversityPress,1991). 4. For anexpanded discussion of “race-conscious” parenting, See in B. D. Tatum, Assimilation blues, ch.6. 5. J.S.Phinney and S.Tarver, “Ethnic identitysearchand commitment in Blackand White eighth graders,” Journal ofEarly Adolescence 8,no. 3(1988): 265-77. 6. See B. D.Tatum, “African-American identity,academic achievement, and missing history,” Social Education 56,no.6(1992): 331-34; B. D. Tatum, “Racial identity andrelational theory: The case of Black women inWhite communities,” in M/ork in progress, no. 63(Wellesley, MA:Stone Center Working Papers,1992); B. D.Tatum, “Out there stranded? Black youth in White communities,” pp. 214-33 in H. McAdoo (Ed.), Blackfamilies, 3d ed. (ThousandOaks,CA:Sage, 1996). 7.For an in-depth discussion of thenegative effects of tracking in schools, see J.Oakes, Keeping track: How schools structure inequality (New Haven: Yale University Press,1985). 8. For further discussion of thesocial dynamics forBlack youth inWhite communities, seeTatum, “Out there stranded?” 9. Leadbeater and Way, Urban girls, p.5. 10. A. Haley andMalcolm X, TIle autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press,1965), p.36. Notes 249 11. S.Fordham and J.Ogbu, “Black student’sschoolsuccess: Coping with the burden of ‘actingWhite,'” Urban Review 18(1986): 176-206. 12. Ibid., p.181. 13. For anexpanded discussion of the “trying tobe White” pheno;11enon, see Fordham and Ogbu, “Blackstudents’ schoolsuccess,” and S.Fordham, “Racelessness as a factor in Black students’ schoolsuccess: Pragmatic strat­ egy or Pyrrhic victory?” Harvard Educational Review 58,no.1(1988): 54-84. 14. Fordham, “Racelessness asafactor inBlack students’ school success.” See also S.Fordham, Blacked out: Dilemmas ifrace, identity, and success at Capital High (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 15.For further discussion of thispoint, see R. Zwcigenhaft and G. W. Domhoff, Blacks inthe VVhite establishment? Astudy ifrace and class inAmerica (New Haven:YaleUniversityPress,1991),p. 155. 16.Ibid. 17. Ibid., p.156. 18. C. Pierce, “Mundane extreme environment anditseffects on learning,” in S. G. Brainard (Ed.), Learning disabilitics: Issucs afld recommendations for research (Washington, DC: NationalInstitute of Education, 1975). 19. See M. C.Waters, “The intersection ofgender, race,andethnicity in iden­ titydevelopment of Caribbean Americanteens,”in B.J.R. Leadbeater and N. Way(Eds.), Urbatl girls: Rcsistiflg stereotypes, creating identities (New York: New York University Press,1996). 20. The Metropolitan CouncilforEducational Opportunity (METCO) pro­ gram was established in 1966 under thestate’s Racial Imbalance Lawpassed by the Massachusetts General Court in 1965. METCO was establishedtoprovide (1) the opportunity foranintegrated publicschool education forurban Black children and other children of colorfromracially imbalanced schools in Bostonbyplacing them insuburban schools, (2) anew learningexperience for suburban children,and (3) acloser understanding andcooperation between urban andsuburban parentsandother citizens inthe Boston metropolitan area. Thirty-four suburbancommunities participate in the METCO program. 21. For amore complete description of theprogram anditsevaluation, see B. D.Tatum, P.C. Brown, P.Elliott, and T.Tatum, “Student efficacy training: An evaluation of onemiddle school’s programmatic responsetothe Eastern Massachusetts Initiative” (presented atthe American Educational Research Association AnnualMeeting, April9,1996, New York).