Teach Me: Cultural Shopping and Student Lore in Urban America Book

A long-awaited and welcomed addition to the literature on early adolescents, "Teach Me" is an ethnographic account of inner-city youth that explores what they want to know, why they want to know it, and how they go about learning it. FitzSimmons study is based on two years of study in which she interviewed children, school administrators, teachers, and parents and examined the results of school-sponsored student surveys. In contrast to typical educational ethnographies that only focus on adult-structured learning situations in school, FitzSimmons' study also considers other contexts, including home, church, and the streets. The study is presented primarily in the children's own words, revealing their views on gangs, fictive kin networks, social activities, mentors, and schoolwork. Rather than concurring with previous studies that typically cast adolescents as either conforming to or rejecting social norms, FitzSimmons argues that the children in her study are "Cultural Shoppers" who individually choose to accept or reject lessons depending on the context. "Teach Me" is an important work that will be valuable to educators, parents, and social scientists interested in better understanding urban youth.

Author Biography: Ellen FitzSimmons is an Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, IL.