This title takes readers into the lives of urban and suburban adolescents for a close-up look at how they navigate the conflicting discourses and disciplinary practices of American cultural crosscurrents that flow through economic, kinship, religious, and political domains of American life.

The study goes well beyond issues of academic achievement to recognize and explore the function of US high schools in smoothing adolescent transitions into the multiple domains of American life. Graduating seniors in the final analyses are heralded as absorbers of traditions, barometers of trends, and harbingers of change. Of interest to a broad range of researchers, teachers, and educational policy makers, this book is particularly relevant for scholars, faculty, and graduate students in social foundations of education, educational anthropology, secondary teacher education, qualitative educational research, and related fields.

Contents: Preface. New Age for Coming of Age. Surface Depths. Economic Domain: ll/licit Pursuit of Mobility. Kinship Domain: Family (Dis)connections. Religious Domain: Freedom of/From Religion. Political Domain: Democracy and Domination. Reaching Shore. Appendix.