Just Girls: Hidden Literacies and Life in Junior High (Language & Literacy) - Softcover

Finders, Margaret J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807735604 ISBN 13: 9780807735602

Publisher: Teachers College Press, 1996

Synopsis

This text provides a portrait of adolescent girls in middle school - the ""social queens"" and the ""tough cookies"". The author, Margaret Finders, follows the girls, focusing on what they read and write - not just school-sanctioned activities but also the important ""hidden literacies"" - signing yearbooks, writing notes, bathroom graffiti and reading teen magazines. She spends time interviewing and interacting with the girls in and out of the classroom, on sleepovers, mall visits nd other recreational visits. What she sees raises questions about what is known about girls' lives. Highlighting the social importance of friendship, family and social networks in girls' sense of themselves, she suggests that literacy plays an important role in maintaining friendship groups and in the construction of the self. The study questions many common assumptions about early adolescence, mostly importantly the ""good girl"" role so often assigned to and reinforced in female students.

About this title

Review:

"An informative book that would be most useful to junior high and middle school adminstrators and language arts teachers . "

--Roeper Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Teachers College Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0807735604
• ISBN 13: 9780807735602
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168