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Youth, Schools and Popular Culture
Rutledge Hill Press
June 2000
224 pages
ISBN: 0415924286
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The date, the gown, the tux, the theme, the corsage.
Everyone remembers the prom. For many teenagers the prom is
the highlight of their high school career, seen as a rite of
passage from adolescence to adulthood. For Amy Best, the
prom presents an ideal forum to explore teen identity and to
show how this seemingly trivial event speaks volumes about
the world of today's kids. Today's proms have gone upscale; no longer held in the high
school gym, many schools hold their proms at luxury hotels,
complete with full banquet facilities and professional
entertainment. Students arrive in limousines, dance the
night away in rented tuxes and skin-tight sheaths then leave
for a weekend of unsupervised activities with friends--for
many their first extended trip without parents. Amy Best
interviews countless teens about their prom experiences, and
she looks at popular media to understand today's teens. She
finds that with the rising purchasing power of youth
culture, the prom is now an industry unto itself with its
own magazines, films, clothing, accessories and
services.
Best shows us that, while the prom is often
trivialized, most kids take the prom seriously. The prom is
a space where kids work through their understanding of
authority, social class, gender norms and multicultural
schooling. Proms are often the sight of public and personal
struggle, especially for gay teens and inter-racial couples,
who are often excluded from the prom. Many kids don't go
totheir prom or, as with gay teens, have begun organizing
"alternative proms." Proms are more than just pictures and puffed sleeves--they
are a mythic part of youth culture and, for better or worse,
will always be a night to remember.
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