• 336 pages
  • 6 x 9
  • 7 tables, 3 figs.
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  • Price: $33.95
  • EAN: 9781566391368
  • Publication: May 1994
  • Price: $90.50
  • EAN: 9781566391351
  • Publication: May 1994
  • Price: $34.95
  • EAN: 9781439901625
  • Publication: May 1994

Sexual Cultures and the Construction of Adolescent Identities

Edited by Janice M. Irvine

This rich collection of essays presents a new vision of adolescent sexuality shaped by a variety of social factors: race and ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, physical ability, and cultural messages propagated in films, books, and within families. The contributors consider the full range of cultural influences that form a teenager's sexual identity and argue that education must include more than its current overriding message of denial hinged on warnings of HIV and AIDS infection and teenage pregnancy. Examining the sexual experiences, feelings, and development of Asians, Latinos, African Americans, gay man and lesbians, and disabled women, this book provides a new understanding of adolescent sexuality that goes beyond the biological approach all too often simplified as "surging hormones."

Contributors: Jill Taylor, Janie Victoria Ward, Lee Strunin, Connie Chan, Luisa Medrano, Diane Raymon, Harilyn Rousso, Mariamne H. Whatley, Linda K. Christian- Smith, Sharon Thompson, Deborah L. Tolman, Janet Kahn, Robert E. Fullilove, Warren Barksdale, and Mindy Thompson Fullilove

Reviews

"Will we engage with adolescents in frank discussion about sexual options and ethics or will we enforce a moralistic silence that resonates with fear and shame? Can we talk with teenagers about what they want to know, or can we only tell them what we want them to know?"
—From the Editor's Introduction

"A book of compelling importance—this volume dissects contemporary myths about adolescent sexuality and presents a startling and powerful cultural and political analysis of adolescent development, sexuality and sexual expression. I recommend this book with a sense of urgency." — Dr. Michael A. Carrera, Director, National Adolescent Sexuality Training Center, The Children's Aid Society

About the Author(s)

Janice M. Irvine is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts and author of Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology (Temple).

In the Series

Health, Society, and Policy

No longer active. Health, Society and Policy, edited by Sheryl Ruzek and Irving Kenneth Zola, takes a critical stance with regard to health policy and medical practice, ranging broadly in subject matter. Backlist titles include books on the legal and professional status of midwifery, the experience and regulation of kidney transplants, the evolution of federal law on architectural access, and a political/ethical argument for making the community responsible for universal access to health care.