This book examines the variations in the constitution of female gender in a group of young working-class women of African American, Latina, Puerto Rican, and White European backgrounds who were enrolled in an alternative high school for students at risk of academic failure. It also analyzes the school processes that shape these young women's…

This book explores the racial experience and consciousness of black and white Americans within the context of their lives over the course of 20 years. The subjects of this book, 16 blacks and 12 whites, were interviewed in 1968, again in 1978-79, and for a third time in 1986. They speak in their own words about how their lives unfolded, how their…