Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth

(Paperback)

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Kids snatched from their bedrooms, shot at in school, fatter than ever, prone to risk-taking and crueltyis childhood today as bad as the news accounts would have us believe Is this generation headed for disaster

Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth critically examines the hottest news stories of the past few years to assess whether the news is really as bad as it sounds. For instance, is kidnapping by strangers really a bigger threat now than in the past Are disputes at school now settled with guns instead of fists And are kids, especially girls, becoming bigger bullies than ever before Kids These Days looks at the stories that made headlines and goes deeper to explore overall trends and statistics to compare the hype to reality. The truth is, kids today do face unique obstacles and challenges, but their situation isn't nearly as dire as the compelling news accounts would have us believe.

Our nation's youth have been targeted as a problem population to absolve adult responsibility for creating the often dangerous and difficult conditions many young people must endure. Kids These Days will give the reader pause and perspective to better understand the realities of the first generation to come of age in the twenty-first century.

Reviews

Sternheimer has examined the powerful shaping influence of US print media articles on youth and linked these perceptions to policy and community reaction to youth. Her analysis of newspaper articels reveals perceived youth characteristicsdangerous, subject to physical harm, gluttonous, misbehaving school students, stupid, easily seduced into deviant behavioras essential components justifying US adult fear of youth. . . . Sternheimer challenges these misperceptions with the available evidence arising from natiaonal research and critical thinking, and details the impact of socioecnomic class stratification and gender. Highly recommended. * Choice Reviews *
Kids These Days makes a critically needed contribution to our understanding of modern youth and their distorted image in the popular media. It is both intellectually stimulating and accessible to a wide variety of readers, including youths themselves. There is an avalanche of perfectly awful, same-themed books by popular and academic authors[Sternheimer] takes a radically different approach and has produced a book that freshens this stifling, sterile climate with dramatically new information. I believe it is ahead of its time and could well generate the kind of attention Culture of Fear received. I would recommend it without hesitation as a text or popular work that documents, analyzes, and challenges the destructive myths about 'kids today.' -- Mike Males, University of California, Santa Cruz

Author Bio

Karen Sternheimer teaches in the sociology department at the University of Southern California. She is the author of It's Not the Media: The Truth About Pop Culture's Influence on Kids.