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 Coming of Age
in U.S. High Schools
Economic, Kinship, Religious,
and Political Crosscurrents
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 Coining of Age
in U.S. High Schools
Economic, Kinship, Religious,
and Political Crosscurrents

Annette B. Hemmings
University of Cincinnati

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS

2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or
any other means, without prior written permission of the
publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, New Jersev 07430

Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hemmings, Annette B.
Coming of age in U.S. high schools : economic, kinship,
religious, and political crosscurrents / Annette B.
Hemmings.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-4666-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8058-4667-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
High school seniors—United States—Social conditions—Case
studies. 2. High schools—United States—Sociological
aspects—Case studies. #. Educational anthropology—
United States—Case studies. I. Title.

LC205.H462004
373.18'0973—dc22 2003049328
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed
on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength
and durability.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my first teacher, fellow traveler,
dear friend, and mother,
Gloria Alban Biederwolf
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Preface xi

1 New Age for Coming of Age 1

(Post)Anthropology 3
Framework for Study 5
Identity Formation 6
Community Integration 8
Fieldwork 12
Site Selection 12
Data Collection 13
Reflexivity and Literary Tropes 16

2 Surface Depths 18
Jefferson High 19
JHS Corridors 20
JHS Classrooms 23
Ridgewood High 24
RHS Corridors 26
RHS Classrooms 30
Central City High 31
CCH Corridors 33
CCH Classrooms 37

3 Economic Domain: Il/licit Pursuit of Mobility 39

Discourses of Money and Occupational
Gratification 39
The Economic Self 40
vii
 CONTENTS

Dominant Currencies 42
Hard Work Through Least Resistance 42
Dominant Divisions of Labor 47
Occupational Tracking 51
Upper Tracks 51
Vocational Tracks 53
Liminal Prospects 58
Technological Screen Age 59
Equalizing Equal Opportunity 62
Women's Work 65
Fast Money, Instant Gratification 70
The Underground Economy 70
Hustlers' Guise 72

4 Kinship Domain: Family (Dis)connections 76

Family Traditions 77
The Familial/Sexual Self 79
Family Life in the Public (Re)making 81
Local Family Worldviews 84
Prescriptive Intent 84
"Good" Family Connections 85
In Defense of'the "True" Self 89
Education for Families' Sake 91
Curriculum of Sociallvj
Efficient Familvj
Management 92
Dysfunctional Family Treatments 95
Therapy for Better Family Functioning 97
Popularity of Popular Sex 100
Gender Antagonisms 102
Teenage Parent Power 102
Sexual Politics 104
Family Among Friends 106

5 Religious Domain: Freedom of/From Religion 111

Theological Discourse 112
The Religious Self 113
Holding the Mainlines 115
Protestant (S)elect 115
Catholic Compliance 119
Jewish Adaptations 121
Liminal Religious Movements 123
CONTENTS

Secular Tide 123

Attractions of the New/Ancient Age 124
Keeping Faith With(in) Ethnic and Racial
Communities 126
Ethnic Havens of Hope 126
Harbors of Racial Upliftment 129
Localized Family/Religious Faith 132
Sacrilege of the Sacred 134
Faith in Schools 135
Classroom Religious Voids 135
Corridor Netherworlds and Sanctuaries 137

6 Political Domain: Democracy and Domination 142

The Political Self 142
Dominant Ideo(logical) Leanings 144
Cause for Interest in Political Movements 150
Common Cause to Special Interests 150
Rebels Without Good Cause 152
Local Family Interests 155
Democratic Education 157
Pedagogical Legacies 157
Politically Explicit/Implicit Lessons 159
Domination and Everyday School Politics 162
Ecology of Games 163
Classroom Politics: Winning Losing Wars 164
Corridor Politics: (Re)gaining Recognition 167
Respectability and Reputation 168
Manipulating the Mark 173

7 Reaching Shore 176

Particular Answers to a Perennial Question 176
Working Through Crosscurrents 176
School Transmission and Construction Sites 179
Reflexive Look Back 182

Endnotes 187
References 193
Appendix 203
Author Index 205
Subject Index 209
This page intentionally left blank
 Preface

There has been a succession of reports and research on U.S. public high
schools that are largely concerned with issues and problems related to aca-
demic achievement. In my own prior research, I was especially interested
in how high-achieving Black students formed academic identities and
were poised to "do" or "not do" the academic work assigned to them
(Hemmings, 1996, 1998). But whenever I entered the field, I was struck
by the observation that high schools and the teenagers who attended
them were involved in much more extensive cultural work. Academic
achievement was important, but it was not necessarily a primary concern
of adolescent students who were struggling hard to come of age in high
schools that have been historically established to ease their passages to
adulthood in the broadest, most comprehensive cultural sense.
I also noticed how adolescent passages were complicated by the fact
that there is not and never will be a common, shared American culture.
Culture in the United States is a dynamic seascape with a myriad of cross-
currents comprised of conflicting discourses and practices that can cause
terrible confusion for, or open up creative possibilities to, teenagers. These
crosscurrents converge in high schools, where students' cultural
navigations may be fairly smooth or extremely treacherous. Such observa-
tions were not lost on anthropologists during the first half of the 20th cen-
tury, but they have been overlooked in recent decades, especially among
school ethnographers who are rendering culture into bounded systems or
binary oppositions in studies that focus rather narrowly on differentiated
patterns of academic achievement.

XI
xii PREFACE

At the outset of the 21 st century, it struck me as critically important to

refocus high school research in ways that capture the actual nature and
complexities of adolescent coming-of-age processes. Research of this kind
is crucial for educational researchers, graduate students, policymakers,
teacher candidates, and in-service practitioners, who seem more per-
plexed then ever about how to address the perennial educational question
of what high schools in the United States ought to be doing to enrich indi-
vidual human potential and allow young people, regardless of their back-
grounds, to achieve a good life. This question imbues the larger purpose of
the ethnographic research presented in this book. The more specific aim
of the study was to describe and analyze how 10 graduating seniors, their
friends, and many of their classmates came of age in three urban and sub-
urban U.S. public high schools. The seniors who volunteered to serve as
research participants included Black inner-city teenagers, White work-
ing-class youths, affluent middle-class suburbanites, a Mexican American
girl, an Asian American boy, Christians, Jews, Muslims, mothers, moth-
ers-to-be, gays, and lesbians. They attended Jefferson High, a racially de-
segregated school; Ridgewood High, a predominantly White,
middle-class school; and Central City High, a school in an impoverished
Black urban neighborhood.
Coming of age is conceived as a two-pronged process of identity forma-
tion and community integration. Identity formation is psychocultural
work where adolescents attempt to form and situate a multifaceted en-
during or "true" self. Community integration involves the particular stra-
tegic adaptations adolescents make as they navigate conflicting
discourses and practices in multilayered cultural crosscurrents flowing
through economic, kinship, religious, and political domains of American
life. Among these currents are dominant culture, liminal trends, popular
culture, undertows, ethnic tributaries, local family worlds, and youth cul-
tures and sub-cultures.
This framework reacknowledges anthropological precedents while rec-
ognizing more contemporary (post)anthropological trends. It also
forefronts the voices and observed experiences of the graduating seniors
who participated in the research. I found that the stories these students told
about how they formed a true self and pursued a good life in the particular
contexts of their high schools provided extremely insightful, sometimes dis-
turbing commentaries on the American cultural seascape. Although, all of
them managed to reach the shores of adulthood, many of their passages
through the crosscurrents flowing through their schools were marked by
tragic setbacks, heroic comebacks, and triumphant endings.
Chapter 1 sets the stage for the study. It includes an overview of anthro-
pological precedents and (post)anthropological perspectives on adoles-
cent coming-of-age processes. This section is followed by a more detailed
PREFACE xiii

discussion of the study's conceptual framework. The chapter also in-

cludes sections on fieldwork methodology, reflexivity, and literary tropes.
General impressions of school life are presented in chapter 2 as con-
textual surfaces for more in-depth explorations of how graduating se-
niors came of age in the three high schools. The 10 seniors who served
as key participants are introduced as they guided me through corridors
and classrooms.
The next four chapters delve into how seniors viewed and navigated
crosscurrents as they came of age in economic, kinship, religious, and po-
litical community domains. Each of these chapters includes a description
of the facets of the enduring self that constituted the core of seniors' iden-
tity work. They are otherwise organized into analytical descriptions of
crosscurrents in the four community domains and how teachers and
school staff facilitated, and students experienced, coming of age within
the contexts of their schools.
Cultural crosscurrents are summarized in chapter 7 as part of a general
overview of how coming of age unfolded in the high schools, as well as
how each school sought particular answers to the perennial educational
question. The last section provides a reflexive look back at how graduating
seniors accomplished what in the final analysis was truly remarkable iden-
tity and integration work in U.S. public high schools.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I acknowledge with deep appreciation the help and support of high school
contacts, reviewers, mentors, and family members. I thank Lynn Kitchen,
Nikela Owens, and Lea Brinker for helping me to gain entree into, and re-
cruiting such wonderful student participants within, the three high school
sites. Your genuine concern for students and their welfare was truly inspir-
ing and an impetus for the study.
I am grateful for the incisive feedback that Reba Page and Pamela Bettis
provided on the early drafts of the book manuscript. Having such intelli-
gent, busy scholars devote that kind of time and effort to my work is more
than I could ever expect, much less reciprocate. I also appreciate the assis-
tance I received from Naomi Silverman, her assistant, Erica Kica, and
other members of the editorial staff at Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Your
masterful diplomacy in the negotiation of substantive revisions was
grand. Patricia Ferenbach deserves the highest praise for the fabulous
copy-editing, and Debbie Ruel, LEA Production Editor, for typesetting
and final production of the book. And I thank Dawn Bellinger, who as my
graduate student assistant handled my correspondence, proofread and
critiqued manuscripts, and made sure that I was up to speed on the latest
trends in the literature.
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