NCJ Number
185676
Journal
Gender and Society Volume: 14 Issue: 5 Dated: October 2000 Pages: 630-643
Date Published
October 2000
Length
14 pages
Annotation
Interviews of 9 poor white females in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades and ages 11-13 years in the post-industrial urban northeast focused on their thoughts about neighborhood, friends, future jobs, and relationships and included questions about domestic assault in their community and their own lives and responses of individuals and schools.
Abstract
Research methods also included observations in a community center and in schools. The participants were all members of a tight peer group. Only one participant reported living with both parents and only two participants reported contact with their biological fathers. These youths were from families that had been working-class for generations and were growing up in poverty. Gender arrangements echoed that of the working class, in which women are subordinate to men. These youths lived among high concentrations of domestic violence, as well as concealment of abuse from those outside the community who might take action. A method of coping for these youths is to envision their future lives as involving jobs and financial self-sufficiency. Such plans are fueled by the hope that living independent lives as single career women will enable them to bypass the domestic violence that currently rips through their own lives and their mothers’ lives. However, their school does not critically explore the issue of violence against women in classrooms. Thus, schools are partly responsible for the silencing and normalizing of abuse. Findings indicated the need for teachers and policymakers to formulate more tangible responses to domestic assault. Notes and 26 references (Author abstract modified)