A01=Michael A. Messner
Author_Michael A. Messner
baseball
basketball
belonging
Category=JBSF
Category=JBSL
Category=JHBS
Category=JNLC
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=WQH
cheerleader
cheerleading
children's sports
class
coaching
community
education
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
football
gender
high school
highschool sports
k-12
little league
public high school
race
race and class formations
Salinas High School
sports
title IX
volleyball
Yearbook
Product details
- ISBN 9781978839533
- Weight: 1447g
- Dimensions: 216 x 279mm
- Publication Date: 11 Mar 2025
- Publisher: Rutgers University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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High school yearbooks provide both a vivid snapshot of student life and a reflection of what the adults in the community valued the most. For instance, athletics are often covered more than academics, and boys’ sports routinely receive more attention than girls’ sports. But how have those values changed over time?
In The High School, acclaimed sociologist Michael A. Messner reads through 120 years of El Gabilan, the yearbook from his own alma mater, Salinas High School in California, where his father taught and coached. Treating the yearbooks as a historical archive, Messner makes surprising discoveries about the school he thought he knew so well. For example, over fifty years before Title IX, the earliest yearbooks gave equal spotlights to boys’ and girls’ athletics, while the cheerleaders were all boys.
Tracing American life and culture from 1903 to 2024, Messner illuminates shifts in social practices at his high school that reflect broader changes in American culture across the twentieth century. The High School spotlights how the meanings and iconography of certain activities have changed radically over the decades, even as the “sports spirit complex”—involving athletes, cheerleaders, band members, and community boosters—has remained a central part of the high school experience. By exploring evolving sports cultures, socioeconomic conditions, racial demographics, and gender norms, Messner offers a fresh perspective on a defining feature of American teenage life.
In The High School, acclaimed sociologist Michael A. Messner reads through 120 years of El Gabilan, the yearbook from his own alma mater, Salinas High School in California, where his father taught and coached. Treating the yearbooks as a historical archive, Messner makes surprising discoveries about the school he thought he knew so well. For example, over fifty years before Title IX, the earliest yearbooks gave equal spotlights to boys’ and girls’ athletics, while the cheerleaders were all boys.
Tracing American life and culture from 1903 to 2024, Messner illuminates shifts in social practices at his high school that reflect broader changes in American culture across the twentieth century. The High School spotlights how the meanings and iconography of certain activities have changed radically over the decades, even as the “sports spirit complex”—involving athletes, cheerleaders, band members, and community boosters—has remained a central part of the high school experience. By exploring evolving sports cultures, socioeconomic conditions, racial demographics, and gender norms, Messner offers a fresh perspective on a defining feature of American teenage life.
MICHAEL A. MESSNER is a professor emeritus of sociology and gender studies at the University of Southern California. He is the author of such works as Power at Play and Taking the Field. This is his twentieth book.
