Urban abstraction in a central city high school

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore urban secondary students' preceptions of their school and community in teh changing economic and social context of postindustrial life. Students and teachers worked and played in a landscape which I have characterized as one ofurban abstraction, a term synthesized mainly from the work of Manuel Castells. The construct helps explain the complex, contradictory, and dynamic conditions of late-20th-century capitalistic life and their impact on the emotional and material realities of urban residents. It also helps to explain the reactions and negotiations in which students and teachers engaged in the face of a constant threat of violence and a lack of community within the school and its surrounding neighborhoods. Ramela Bettis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership, and Technology at Auburn University, where she teaches courses in qualitative research methods and educational foundations.     

Short skirts and breast juts: cheerleading,eroticism and schools

Cheerleading, an American invention, has 3.8 million participants in the United States, 97% of whom are female. It is an adult‐sanctioned and typically school‐affiliated activity that remains popular in spite of the increase in sports' opportunities for girls in schools. Drawing from popular culture and a middle school ethnography, the authors document the enduring popularity of cheerleading and how it is a vehicle through which adolescent girls may try out various facets of what it means to be a contemporary American woman. The cheerleader represents both the ‘good’ girl as well as the sexy tease. Understanding the sexual tensions embedded in cheerleading in its nation of origin may provide educators in different national contexts ideas of how to use cheerleading as an educational tool.