Search results

1 – 10 of over 9000
Book part
Publication date: 5 August 2011

Yu-Hsuan Lin

Purpose – Recent research on the gender culture and femininity of adolescent girls found that girls construct their gender identity in various ways that are intertwined with race…

Abstract

Purpose – Recent research on the gender culture and femininity of adolescent girls found that girls construct their gender identity in various ways that are intertwined with race, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation. However, these existing studies focused on either general schoolgirls (see Ali, S. (2003). To be a girl: Culture and class in schools. Gender and Education, 15(3), 269–283; Bettie (2003); Weiler, J. D. (2000). Codes and contradictions: Race, gender identity and schooling. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; Renold, E. (2005). Girls, boys and junior sexualities: Exploring children's gender and sexual relations in the primary school. London: Routledge) or delinquent girls in a gang (see Miller, J. (1998). Gender and victimization risk among young women in gangs. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 35, 429–453; Miller (2001); Joe-Laidler & Hunt (2001); Schalet, A., Hunt, G., & Joe-Laidler, K. (2003). Respectability and autonomy: The articulation and meaning of sexuality among the girls in the gang. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 32, 108–143; Messerschmidt (1995); Messerschmidt, J. W. (1997). Crime as structured action: Gender, race, class, and crime in the making. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), and only a few studies paid attention to girls who showed overt oppositional behaviors at school.

Methods – The research uses qualitative methods and explores the gender identity of two adolescent girls in a junior high school in Taiwan, who are regarded as problem or “badgirls by the school faculty.

Results – The two girls both manifested “ladette” culture (Jackson, 2006). On the one hand, they showed masculine behaviors such as fighting, troublemaking, disobeying school regulations, and using drugs and alcohol. On the other hand, they deliberately emphasized their femininity and sexual maturity in the way they dressed, talked, and behaved.

Details

The Well-Being, Peer Cultures and Rights of Children
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-075-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 28 November 2022

Simmone Howell and Bec Kavanagh

The teenage girl constructs her identity amidst a chorus of conflicting voices. She both replicates and resists the patterns of good girl/bad girl as displayed by earlier…

Abstract

The teenage girl constructs her identity amidst a chorus of conflicting voices. She both replicates and resists the patterns of good girl/bad girl as displayed by earlier generations, trying to figure out who she is and how she might live in her body, in the world.

Evil women – bad girls – defy the binary definitions of good and bad, both in body and spirit. They are the bad feminist, they are the Sea Witch, they are the art monster. But when we claim the monster as our role model, we commit her (and ourselves) to the constraints of the patriarchy – replicating a predetermined way of being a girl. There must be a way to define ourselves beyond these constraints. How does one become the monster?

Teen identity is constructed via research, rehearsal and performance: the trying on of multiple possible selves. One person's performed identity becomes the benchmark that others measure themselves against.

Like Courtney Love, who said she didn't want to be with the band, she wanted to be in the band, we all want to belong. We all want to stand out. How sharply we carve the edges of ourselves to fit.

This interactive ‘Fakebook dialogue’ allows Bec and Simmone to draw a line through theory and personal experience, bringing the voices of academia to life, and imagining them in conversation with ourselves and the women whom we have resisted, used as role models or temporarily dreamed ourselves into being. Our piece is set in the nexus of the body and the self. We incorporate autotopography and self-representation as shaped by shared cultural objects to interrogate existing modes of replication and resistance and try to imagine the monstrous shape of our true identity.

Details

Divergent Women
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-678-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 August 2023

Meda Chesney-Lind

While the rest of the world focused on girls' issues around education, girls' victimization in the family, girls' problems with sexual assault and harassment, and girls forced…

Abstract

While the rest of the world focused on girls' issues around education, girls' victimization in the family, girls' problems with sexual assault and harassment, and girls forced into early marriage, the US seems curiously mired in a series of media-driven moral panics about girlhood. The last few decades have seen worries about girls: girls going bad, mean girls, and girls who are bullies, girls mimicking boys' violence, and girls getting sexually trafficked and engaging in prostitution. Given this, it is important to review several key themes: the current evidence about the actual dimensions of female delinquency and trends in juvenile arrests, particularly girls' arrests for non-traditional offences; the role of race in girls' delinquency will also be explored. This analysis will document the need to explore gendered consequences in the policing of girls' misbehaviour. Specifically, the chapter will explore the implication of girls' increasing presence in a largely male-oriented juvenile justice system and the feminisation of juvenile justice in the United States.

Details

The Emerald International Handbook of Feminist Perspectives on Women’s Acts of Violence
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-255-6

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 October 2019

Robert Francis Hesketh

The purpose of this paper is to disseminate street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified a major aspect of young disenfranchised people’s attraction to street gangs…

1110

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to disseminate street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified a major aspect of young disenfranchised people’s attraction to street gangs as edgework risk-taking. The study which sought to identify differences between those who joined street gangs compared to those who abstained on Merseyside.

Design/methodology/approach

Two samples were taken from locations within the five boroughs of Merseyside, the first comprising of 22 participants (18–25) involved in street gangs as active and ex-members with a second sample consisting of 22 participants (18–25) who had completely abstained from street gang membership. Data were collected through adoption of biographic narrative interpretive method (BNIM) (Wengraf, 2001), with analysis taking the form of Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) version of grounded theory.

Findings

Of the many findings that surrounded what was identified as the core category/central phenomena of “coping with limited opportunity” it emerged that marginalisation and austerity were contributing to increasing inequality and institutional constraint on young people on Merseyside. As a result, many of the 18–25 year young men felt powerless, lacking identity and aspirational drive. Joining a gang thus became not only a way in which control was seized back from such constraint through criminal risk-taking behaviour, what Lyng (1990) has termed “edgework”, but also a means in which many of the young men interviewed gained an identity of being “bad” from which intrinsically pleasurable seductive and criminally erotic sensations were derived (Katz, 1988). Moreover, a relatively new version of edgework was also identified, even though by way of male testimony. Called “vicarious edgework”, the phenomena sees young women drawn to male gang members (“bad boys”) to derive the excitement of risk indirectly while remaining law abiding. In sum, the paper highlights a concerning socio-psychological and key motivating driver triggered by marginalisation.

Research limitations/implications

Study samples were all male. Thus, any observations on the vicarious edgework aspect of risk taking requires further research involving both young men and women.

Practical implications

The paper highlights the need for more understanding of the allure of risk-taking. The paper identifies a new form of female edgework. The paper draws attention to gang membership and non-membership on Merseyside, an area that has been greatly neglected by gangs’ studies in the UK. The paper describes a novel way of data collection using an adoption of BNIM.

Social implications

In sum, the paper highlights a concerning socio-psychological and key motivating driver triggered by marginalisation. This, the author contends has been largely neglected by risk factor focussed interventions that largely concentrate on the idea of rational choice theory and sociological positivism.

Originality/value

The paper attempts to disseminate original street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified a major aspect of young disenfranchised people’s attraction to street gangs as edgework risk-taking.

Details

Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, vol. 5 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-3841

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2016

Shaunessy McNeely and Floor Christie-de Jong

The purpose of this paper is to explore perspectives of Somali refugees on female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and potential changes in these after migration.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore perspectives of Somali refugees on female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and potential changes in these after migration.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted in Denver, Colorado, USA, with 13 Somali refugees. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the data.

Findings

Change of perspectives regarding the support of FGM/C were noted among all participants, with most opposing infibulations, FGM/C type III, after migration but supporting Sunna, the cutting of the clitoris, FGM/C type I. Changes were prompted by education on FGM/C and resettling resulting in an awareness that infibulation is not a religious requirement nor undergone by all women. Cultural beliefs regarding the importance of virginity, purity and honor to the family underpinning the rationale of FGM/C were prevalent and some confusion in dealing with these cultural values was found. Women reported health care providers (HCPs) not being culturally prepared for women with FGM/C.

Research limitations/implications

Despite limitations to the study, findings indicate the complex process of migration and acculturation, leaving communities with cultural values in a context where these are not accepted. More research and discussion with the Somali immigrant community is required to better understand the practice of FGM/C after immigration, and how to deal with these cultural values.

Originality/value

Findings suggest some girls may still be at risk of some types of FGM/C after migration. Public health professionals, social and immigration workers should be aware of a potential risk. HCPs should prepare for caring for women with FGM/C.

Details

International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, vol. 12 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-9894

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-889-6

Article
Publication date: 14 December 2015

Laura J. Elwyn, Nina Esaki and Carolyn A. Smith

Serious juvenile delinquency is a significant and costly problem in the society. However, custodial environments often exacerbate current problems and promote recidivism. Girls’…

Abstract

Purpose

Serious juvenile delinquency is a significant and costly problem in the society. However, custodial environments often exacerbate current problems and promote recidivism. Girls’ delinquency, in particular, may call for trauma-informed approaches within organizations that serve the most serious offenders. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether implementation of a trauma-informed intervention that aims to change the therapeutic stand of the organization, the Sanctuary Model®, corresponded with improved indicators of physical and psychological safety of staff and youth at a female secure juvenile justice facility.

Design/methodology/approach

This study utilizes quantitative administrative and performance-based standards (PbS) data routinely collected at the facility.

Findings

Findings suggest that the facility was a safer place for both residents and staff after implementation of the model. Its safety indicators also compare favorably to those of the juvenile justice correctional field in general.

Research limitations/implications

This study was constrained by a number of limitations, including lack of some desirable detail on the PbS measures and on a comparable field group of girls’ facilities. It is also hard to assess the impact of other concurrent changes in the facility. Future research that addresses these issues would be useful in further determining the utility of the model.

Originality/value

This study is the first to examine the impact of a structured trauma-informed organizational change intervention based on therapeutic communities principles, namely the Sanctuary Model, on staff and youth in a secure juvenile justice facility. Findings may be of value to practitioners, administrators, policy makers, and researchers in the corrections field.

Details

Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, vol. 36 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0964-1866

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 August 2023

Ediomo-Ubong Nelson and Tasha Ramirez

Current responses to women's violence are rooted in stereotypical views that delink women's violence from the context of gendered inequality and social marginalisation that…

Abstract

Current responses to women's violence are rooted in stereotypical views that delink women's violence from the context of gendered inequality and social marginalisation that mediates it. In this chapter, we draw from feminist scholarship on women's violence, including violence by female sex workers (FSWs), and qualitative data to examine different forms of FSWs' violence against their male clients and the contexts that shape their use of violence. Twenty-seven in-depth interviews were conducted with FSWs recruited through snowball sampling in Uyo, Nigeria. Thematic analysis revealed three forms of violence: ‘situational violence’ – an individual-centred, self-defensive and spontaneous response to conflict situations; ‘collective violence’ – pre-meditated violence used by a group of FSWs to revenge the victimisation of its member, and ‘symbolic violence’ – the un-planned outcome of FSWs' violence that has the effect of deterring client violence and inducing cooperative behaviour. FSWs use violence to deter or counter threatened or enacted client violence and to exact revenge for past victimisation. They also use violence to enforce rules, extract payments and establish solidarity. FSWs' violence is contextualised within the everyday experience of client violence. This violence is not only reactionary; it is a pragmatic attempt to negotiate structural and gender dynamics that shape risks in sex work.

Details

The Emerald International Handbook of Feminist Perspectives on Women’s Acts of Violence
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-255-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 19 May 2009

Joan DeJaeghere and Shirley J. Miske

This chapter examines discourses and social practices at individual, community, and institutional levels related to non-majority Vietnamese ethnic girls’ access to and…

Abstract

This chapter examines discourses and social practices at individual, community, and institutional levels related to non-majority Vietnamese ethnic girls’ access to and participation in secondary school. This critical analysis utilizes Sen's framework of capabilities to illustrate differences in discourse and social practice that exist around poverty, and the ways in which gendered relations and ethnic traditions are intertwined with the discourse and practices of poverty to affect girls’ choices and well-being in and through secondary education. We particularly draw on girls’ and their parents’ constructions of these issues as they negotiate and are affected by them. We argue that strategies must move beyond the discourse that ethnic traditions and gendered relations are barriers to girls’ education to consider the inequalities and lack of capabilities that perpetuate poverty and unequal gendered relations for non-majority ethnic groups in societies.

Details

Gender, Equality and Education from International and Comparative Perspectives
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-094-0

Book part
Publication date: 7 October 2019

This chapter explores the intersections between narrative criminology and material culture studies using a single object – my wife's old Nazi rifle – as an example. It describes…

Abstract

This chapter explores the intersections between narrative criminology and material culture studies using a single object – my wife's old Nazi rifle – as an example. It describes the various connections between the stories we tell and the things that surround us, including the stories objects represent, the stories they may prompt us to tell, the stories we tell using objects as props and the stories our material objects tell us about their owners or users. An object will always tell stories about past, present and future use. This is true of all objects, not just old Nazi rifles, but some things will carry more narrative potential than others. Finally, I ask whether some narratively loaded objects may anticipate or perhaps even precipitate certain actions. Is it true that some objects sometimes ask us to put them to use?

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Narrative Criminology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-006-6

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 9000