Fitting In, Standing Out
Navigating the Social Challenges of High School to Get an Education

Makes the case that the social dynamics and turbulence of high school can disrupt educational trajectories after high school.

Robert Crosnoe (Author)

9781107005020, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 March 2011

280 pages, 22 b/w illus. 2 tables
23.5 x 15.5 x 2 cm, 0.51 kg

"....With bullying reaching a crisis level in U.S. schools, University of Texas at Austin sociologist Robert Crosnoe has completed one of the most comprehensive studies of the long-term effects on teenagers who say they don't fit in. His new book "Fitting In, Standing Out" (Cambridge University Press; April 2011) provides new and disturbing evidence that socially marginalized youth, including victims of bullying, are less likely to go to college, which can have major implications for their adult lives...."
--Michelle Bryant, UT-Austin Arts & Letters Magazine

In American high schools, teenagers must navigate complex youth cultures that often prize being 'real' while punishing difference. Adults may view such social turbulence as a timeless, ultimately harmless rite of passage, but changes in American society are intensifying this rite and allowing its effects to cascade into adulthood. Integrating national statistics with interviews and observations from a single school, this book explores this phenomenon. It makes the case that recent macro-level trends, such as economic restructuring and technological change, mean that the social dynamics of high school can disrupt educational trajectories after high school; it looks at teenagers who do not fit in socially at school - including many who are obese or gay - to illustrate this phenomenon; and it crafts recommendations for parents, teachers and policy-makers about how to protect teenagers in trouble. The result is a story of adolescence that hits home with anyone who remembers high school.

Part I. High Schools as Contexts of Development: 1. Pressures on teenagers and their schools
2. A day in the life
3. The two sides of high school
4. Updating and expanding our perspective
Part II. A Case Study of Social and Academic Experiences in High School: 5. The stakes of social marginalization
6. Teenagers at particular risk
7. How teenagers know what they know and why it matters
8. Sources of resilience
Part III. Helping Teenagers Navigate High School: 9. Solutions within schools
10. Looking to parents and other adults
11. In search of theory and action.

Subject Areas: Educational psychology [JNC], Education [JN], Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Age groups: adolescents [JFSP2]