Relational aggression involves excluding peers from social activities and spreading harmful rumors about the victim. Assumptions that only girls are victimized in this way are largely debunked, yet there is little research to explain why boys are victimized in this manner. This study poses the possibility that male adolescent victimization by…

This study explores how linkages between adolescents' educational attitudes and achievement vary according to race, expressive culture, and neighborhood collective socialization qualities. Specifically, the study examines (a) racial differences in how males' educational attitudes relate to their academic performance (i.e.,…

Erikson (1950) contends that the physical changes associated with puberty serve as a catalyst for adolescents to question childhood identifications and to consolidate these with current self-conceptions, personal ideologies, interpersonal values, and future aspirations. Erikson describes the adolescent identity crisis as the developmental period…

This qualitative study discovers teenage boys whose connections to Judaism and Jewish life offered them resilience and contextual opportunities for identity development. Those who have active, positive Jewish identities describe adaptations that are more independent of adolescent peer norms and freer, in terms of masculine pressures, than less…

The last decade has seen the growth of knowledge societies within neoliberal economies. As a result, learners are increasingly individualized and expected to be responsible for their learning. The main part of the article uses findings from a study of young masculinities to argue that boys are not free to choose to work toward qualifications but…

Using an interpretivist approach, this article explores young African American men's (n = 20) reflections on coming of age and the meanings of father loss. Based on focus groups, the authors found that it was through autobiographical narratives of loss, survival, and redemption that young men positioned themselves ideologically and constructed the…

Qualitative research with 127 low-income young men and women, aged 14 to 30, in Rio de Janeiro found rigid gender roles with males displaying widespread "machista" attitudes (an exaggerated deep structure of masculinity) and acceptance of violence against women that was greater in low-income urban areas. Implications for working with…

Describes a study investigating two young, working class, African American men's differing meanings of diplomas, relationships with teachers, and relationships with male peers in the production of their racial, masculine identities. Data from interviews with the students indicate that though they were from similar social locations, they developed…