Description
Kids snatched from their bedrooms, shot at in school, fatter than ever, prone to risk-taking and cruelty is childhood today as bad as the news accounts would have us believe? Is this generation headed for disaster?
Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth critically examines the hottest news stories of the past few years to assess whether the news is really as bad as it sounds. For instance, is kidnapping by strangers really a bigger threat now than in the past? Are disputes at school now settled with guns instead of fists? And are kids, especially girls, becoming bigger bullies than ever before?
Kids These Days looks at the stories that made headlines and goes deeper to explore overall trends and statistics to compare the hype to reality. The truth is, kids today do face unique obstacles and challenges, but their situation isn't nearly as dire as the compelling news accounts would have us believe.
Our nation's youth have been targeted as a problem population to absolve adult responsibility for creating the often dangerous and difficult conditions many young people must endure. Kids These Days will give the reader pause and perspective to better understand the realities of the first generation to come of age in the twenty-first century.
"Sternheimer has examined the powerful shaping influence of US print media articles on youth and linked these perceptions to policy and community reaction to youth. Her analysis of newspaper articles reveals perceived youth characteristics—dangerous, subject to physical harm, gluttonous, misbehaving school students, stupid, easily seduced into deviant behavior—as essential components justifying US adult fear of youth. . . . Sternheimer challenges these misperceptions with the available evidence arising from national research and critical thinking, and details the impact of socioeconomic class stratification and gender. Highly recommended."—Choice Table of contents
* Introduction: Kids These Days
* Kidnapped! Childhood Stolen
* Greedy Gluttons: Childhood Indulged
* School House Shock: Zero Tolerance and the Scary School Myth
* Hazed and Confused: Mean Kids
* Jackasses and Copycats: X-treme Behavior
* Hell on Wheels: Teen Drivers
* Conclusion: The Business of Youth Phobia: Fear Sells