A01=Amy C. Wilkins
african
america
american
Author_Amy C. Wilkins
belief
campus
Category=JBCC
Category=JBCC1
Category=JBSP2
christianity
class
classism
clique
college
community
crossover
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
exotic
expectations
faith
fashion
gender
gothic
high school
identity
mainstream
organization
psychology
puerto rico
race
racism
religion
religious studies
sexuality
status
style
subculture
taboo
united states
usa
white
women
youth
Product details
- ISBN 9780226898421
- Weight: 595g
- Dimensions: 16 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jan 2008
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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On college campuses and in high school halls, being white means being boring. Since whiteness is the mainstream, white kids lack a cultural identity that's exotic or worth flaunting. To remedy this, countless white youths across the country are now joining more outre subcultures like the Black- and Puerto Rican- dominated hip-hop scene, the glamorously morose goth community, or an evangelical Christian organization whose members reject campus partying. Amy C. Wilkins' intimate ethnography of these three subcultures reveals a complex tug-of-war between the demands of race, class, and gender in which transgressing in one realm often means conforming to expectations in another. Subcultures help young people, especially women, navigate these connecting territories by offering them different sexual strategies: wannabes cross racial lines, goths break taboos by becoming involved with multiple partners, and Christians forego romance to develop their bond with God. Avoiding sanctimonious hysteria over youth gone astray, Wilkins meets these kids on their own terms, and the result is a perceptive and provocative portrait of the structure of young lives.
Amy C. Wilkins is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
