Sociology 443: Generations of Youth
Fall 2008
W- 2:30-4:20
King 235
Dr. Daphne John
King 305B
x58377
Office Hours: T- 2:30-4:00
W- 10:00-11:15
Course Description:
This seminar will focus on several birth cohorts in the U.S. We will examine issues
concerning relationships and sexuality, employment, underemployment and
unemployment, cultural contributions, communication and social concerns of youth.
Emphasis will be placed understanding how youth experience differs from others and
what implications this has for quality of life and social policy.
Required Texts
Hine, Thomas. 2000. The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager, Perennial.
Kitwana, Bakari. 2003. The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African
American Culture, Basic Civitas Books.
Maira, Sunaina. 2002. Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture in NYC,
Temple.
Maira, Sunaina and Elizabeth Soep. 2005. Youthscapes: The Popular, The National, The
Global, University of Pennsylvania Press.
Mason, Matt. 2008. The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing
Capitalism, Free Press.
Nayak, Anoop and Mary Jane Kehily. 2007. Gender, Youth and Culture: Young
Masculinities and Femininities, Palgrave Macmillan.
Recommended Text
Ginwright, Shawn, Pedro Noguera and Julio Cammarota. 2006. Beyond Resistance!
Youth Activism and Community Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and
Policy for America's Youth. Routledge.
Instructor policies:
(1) ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE HANDED IN ON THE DATE THEY ARE DUE.
ALL LATE ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE PENALIZED ONE LETTER GRADE
EACH DAY THEY ARE LATE (e.g. an A would become an A- if one day late).
ASSIGNMENTS THAT ARE NOT TURNED IN WILL RECEIVE A VALUE OF
“ZERO” IN THE FINAL GRADE COMPUTATION (e.g. Failing to hand in an
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assignment that is worth 20% of the final grade will yield 0%, thus the “best” final
grade you can achieve is an 80% or a B-, IF you have 100% on all other
assignments). Any assignment submitted electronically to BLACKBOARD must be
saved as an MS Word (.doc), rich-text, or html file ONLY!
(2) Office Hours are listed at the top of this syllabus. If you would like to meet at a
specific time during my office hours, please sign up on the sheet next to my office
door. You may also drop in if no one has signed up for the time. Upon special
request, I will meet with students at times outside of my office hours. Please see me
IN PERSON to set up such an appointment.
(3) I receive up to 30 or more e-mails per day. Please do not expect me to reply
immediately to an e-mail question or request. If something is urgent, please CALL
ME in my office or signify in the e-mail header that it is urgent.
(4) Honor Code: This course will follow the policies described in the Oberlin College
Honor Code and Honor System. Please include the statement “I affirm that I have
adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment” in all written work. Please contact
me if you have any questions about citation, or the relationship of the Honor Code
to your work in this course. For more information on the Honor Code, see
http://www.oberlin.edu/students/student_pages/honor_code.html.
(5) Students with Disabilities: If you need disability-related accommodations for
your work in this course, please let me know. Support is available through Student
Academic Services—please contact Jane Boomer, Coordinator of Services for
Students with Disabilities, (Room G27 Peters Hall, ext. 58467) for assistance in
developing a plan to address your academic needs.
(6) I reserve the right to modify the syllabus during the semester, if needed.
Requirements
PARTICIPATION AND ATTENDANCE (15%) Attendance: This course will be
primarily conducted as a discussion course; therefore, your consistent attendance is
required. After two absences, additional absences will generally lower your final grade
in the course (1/3 of a grade per two additional absences). In case of illness or personal
emergency, absences may be excused through a doctor or dean’s note.
Discussion: Your thoughtful spoken analysis and active listening will be a central
component of your work in this course. If you are uncomfortable speaking in class,
please come and see me and we can discuss strategies for your participation.
READING RESPONSE ASSIGNMENTS (40%--5% each) In order to facilitate
critical thinking and class discussion, each student will submit critical reviews of weekly
readings. Each review should include a brief discussion of the arguments, methods, and
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key points from the text you believe relevant for seminar discussion. You are encouraged
to refer to other course readings in these reviews as a way of critically examining how
different writers understand, analyze and explain various aspects of youth culture.
Although you are responsible for 10 sets of readings, you will be asked to submit 8
critical reviews for the weeks you choose. The reviews should be approximately 3-4
pages in length. Each review must be submitted into the digital drop box on
Blackboard by the Tuesday prior to class at 8pm. Since these writing assignments
are designed to organize seminar discussion, late reviews will not be accepted.
SEMINAR DISCUSSION (10%) With a partner, you will develop a critical analysis
describing the assigned readings and identifying the concerns, interests, and questions
raised by seminar members in their response papers.
PROJECT (35%): Research paper or creative media project
PROPOSAL (5%): 2 pages plus annotated bibliography; Scheduled meeting with
Instructor. (DUE October 15).
PRESENTATION (10%): Scheduled during last two weeks of classes in class. 20
minutes, including time for questions.
FINAL DRAFT (20%): Length to be determined dependent on type of project.
(DUE December 16).
Readings
9.3
Introduction
(BB) Austin and Willard: “Introduction: Angels of History, Demons of Culture”
(BB) McCrobbie:"Different, Youthful and Subjective: Toward a Cultural
Sociology of Youth"
In Youthscapes
Lipsitz: “Midnight’s Children: Youth Culture in the Age of Globalization”
Maira and Soep: “Introduction”
9.10
Hine: The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager
Savage: “The American Century: G. Stanley Hall and Adolescence”
“The arrival of the teenager: the launch of seventeen”
9.17
(BB) Savage: “High School Freshman and Factory Fodder: American
Adolescence and Industry”
(BB) Locher: “The Industrial Identity Crisis: The Failure of a Newly Forming
Subculture to Identify Itself”
3
(BB) Moore: "... And Tomorrow Is Just Another Crazy Scam": Postmodernity,
Youth, and the Downward Mobility of the Middle Class”
(BB) Zhou and Lee: “Introduction—The Making of Culture, Identity and
Ethnicity Among Asian American Youth”
In Youthscapes –Part I
Forman: “Straight outta Mogadishu: prescribed identities and performative
practices among Somali youth in North American high schools”
Cintron: “Gangs and their walls”
Pollock: “Race bending: "mixed" youth practicing strategic racialization in
California”
Maira: “The intimate and the imperial: South Asian Muslim immigrant youth
after 9/11”
9.24
Maira, Sunaina: Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture in NYC
10.1
Youthscapes - Part III
Schneider: " ‘Jackie Chan is nobody, and so am I’: juvenile fan culture and the
construction of transnational male identity in the Tamil diaspora”
Fleetwood: “Authenticating practices: producing realness, performing youth”
Soep: “Making hard-core masculinity: teenage boys playing house”
Ramlow: “Bad boys: abstractions of difference and the politics of youth
‘deviance’
(BB) Savage: “Jitterbugs and ickies: American swing and youth consumerism”
(BB) Espana “Brown ‘Hordes’ in McIntosh Suits: Filipinos, Taxi Dance Halls,
and Performing the Immigrant Body in Los Angeles, 1930-1940’s”
(BB) Savage: “Zoot-Suiters and Victory Girls: American Unrest in 1943”
(BB) McFarland: “Challenging the Contradictions of Chicanismo in Chicano Rap
Music and Male Culture”
10.8 Nayak, Anoop and Mary Jane Kehily: Gender, Youth and Culture: Young
Masculinities and Femininities: Part I
1-Introducing gender
2-Researching gender : towards global ethnographies
3-Gender relations in late-modernity: young masculinities in crisis
4-Gender relations in late-modernity: youthful femininities and the new girl order
5-Gender in a global context
(BB) Giroux: “Teenage Sexuality, Body Politics, and the Pedagogy of Display”
(BB) Odem: “Teenage Girls, Sexuality, and Working-Class Parents in Early
Twentieth-Century California”
(BB) Sears: “Growing Up as a Jewish Lesbian in South Florida: Queer Teen Life
in the Fifties”
4
(BB) Addison and Comstock: “Virtually Out: The Emergence of a Lesbian,
Bisexual, and Gay Youth Cyberculture”
10.15 Nayak, Anoop and Mary Jane Kehily: Gender, Youth and Culture: Young
Masculinities and Femininities: Part II
6-Producing and regulating gender
7-Consuming gender
8-Performing gender
9-Ending gender?
(BB) Grossman, Arnold H.; D'Augelli, Anthony R.: “Transgender Youth:
Invisible and Vulnerable”, Journal of Homosexuality, 2006, Vol. 51 Issue 1,
p111-128
(BB) Frost: “Doing Bodies Differently: Gender, Youth Appearance and
Damage”, Journal of Youth Studies, Mar2003, Vol. 6 Issue 1, p53
(BB) Peralta: “Alcohol allows you to not be yourself: Toward a structured
understanding of alcohol us and gender differences among gay, lesbian and
heterosexual youth”, Journal of Drug Issues, Spring2008, Vol. 38 Issue 2, p373399.
10.29 Mason, Matt. The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing
Capitalism
(BB) Hughes, B., Russell, R., & Paterson, K. (2005, January). Nothing to be had
'off the peg': consumption, identity and the immobilization of young disabled
people. Disability & Society, 20(1), 3-17.
11.5 (BB) Hosang: “Beyond policy: ideology, race and the reimagining of youth”
(BB) Akom : “The racial dimensions of social capital: toward a new understanding
of youth empowerment and community organizing in America's urban core”
(BB) Danico and Vo: “No Lattes Here: Asian American Youth and the Cyber Café
Obsession”
(BB) Butler: “Rehabilitating the Images of Disabled Youth”
(BB) Wilkins: “’So Full of Myself as a Chick’: Goth Women, Sexual
Independence and GenderEgalitarianism”
In Youthscapes Part II
Fadzillah : “The Amway connection: how transnational ideas of beauty and
money affect northern Thai girls' perceptions of their future options”
Guerra Vásquez : “Homies unidos : international barrio warriors waging peace on
two fronts”
Shepler: “Globalizing child soldiers in Sierra Leone”
11.12 Kitwana, Bakari. 2003. The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in
African American Culture
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(BB) Flores- González ,Rodriguez and Rodriguez-Muniz: “From hip-hop to
humanization: Batey Urbano as a space for Latino youth culture and community
action”
(BB) Muñoz-Laboy, M., Castellanos, D., Haliburton, C., Del Aguila, E.,
Weinstein, H., & Parker, R. (2008, June). Condom Use and Hip Hop Culture: The
Case of Urban Young Men in New York City. American Journal of Public Health,
98(6), 1081-1085
11.19 (BB) Stovall: “From hunger strike to high school: youth development, social
justice, and school formation”
(BB) Morrell: “Youth-initiated research as a tool for advocacy and change in
urban schools”
(BB) Duncan-Andrade: “Urban youth, media literacy, and increased critical civic
participation”
(BB) Sherrod: “Promoting citizenship and activism in today's youth”
(BB) Noguera and Cannella: “Conclusion: youth agency, resistance, and civic
activism: the public commitment to social justice”
11.26 No Class—Presentation Preparation
12.3 Presentations
12.10 Presentations
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