The focus of this paper is the significance of an urban high school in the process of gender and sexual identity construction for a group of adolescent Latinas in Los Angeles. I explore multiple discourses of adolescent femininity, masculinity, sexual morality, and achievement conveyed through consecutive, in-depth group discussions with friendship groups of young Latinas. I argue that for these young women, studenthood is not a generic stage in the life course, but one that is embedded in society's expectations of and anxieties about young women. In and through dominant discourses and institutional practices they are constituted as vulnerable and as out of control in terms of sexual desire (their own as well as others' for them). In a ‘spatiality of protection’ they are positioned, precariously, as singularly responsible for both their academic diligence and their bounded sexuality in order to succeed as young women in high school and realise their goals as adult women beyond high school.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baca ZinnM, 1979, “Chicano family research: conceptual distortions and alternative directions”Journal of Ethnic Studies759–71
2.
Baca ZinnM, 1980, “Employment and education of Mexican-American women: the interplay of modernity and ethnicity in eight families”Harvard Educational Review5047–62
3.
Baca ZinnM, 1982–83, “Familism among Chicanos: a theoretical review”Humboldt Journal of Social Relations10224–238
4.
BallS, 1990, “Introducing Monsieur Foucault”, in Foucault and Education: Disciplines and Knowledge Ed. BallS (Routledge, London) pp 1–8
5.
BelgumD, 1998, “Kids having kids: a poverty formula?”Los Angeles Times 21 February, page B7
6.
BlackmanS, 1998, “The School: ‘Poxy cupid!’ An ethnographic and feminist account of a resistant female youth culture: the New Wave Girls”, in Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Culture Eds SkeltonTValentineG (Routledge, London) pp 207–228
7.
BurgessJLimbMHarrisonC, 1988a, “Exploring environmental values through the medium of small groups: 1. Theory and practice”Environment and Planning A20309–326
8.
BurgessJLimbMHarrisonC, 1988b, “Exploring environmental values through the medium of small groups: 2. Illustrations of a group at work”Environment and Planning A20457–476
9.
ButlerJ, 1993Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (Routledge, New York)
10.
CordeiroPCarspeckenP, 1993, “How a minority of the minority succeed: a case study of twenty Hispanic achievers”Qualitative Studies in Education6277–290
11.
CresswellT, 1996In Place/Out of Place: Geography, Ideology and Transgression (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
12.
DavalosK, 1996, “La quinceañera: making gender and ethnic identities”Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies16101–127
13.
DwyerC, 1996Constructions and Contestations of Islam: Questions of Identity for Young British Muslim Women unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Geography, University of London, London
14.
FineM, 1992Disruptive Voices: The Possibilities of Feminist Research (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI)
15.
FoucaultM, 1970The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (Random House, New York)
16.
FoucaultM, 1977Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx)
17.
FoucaultM, 1978The History of Sexuality: Volume I. An Introduction (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx)
18.
GlennE N, 1992, “From servitude to service work: historical continuities in the racial division of paid reproductive labor”Signs181–43
19.
GossJLeinbachT, 1996, “Focus groups as alternative research practice: experience with transmigrants in Indonesia”Area28115–123
20.
GriffenC, 1993Representations of Youth: The Study of Youth and Adolescence in Britain and America (Polity Press, Cambridge)
21.
GuendelmanSPerez-ItriagoA, 1987, “Double lives: the changing role of women in seasonal migration”Women's Studies13249–271
22.
HallS, 1904Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relation to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education2 volumes (D Appleton, New York)
23.
HealyM, 1998a, “Latina teens defy decline in birthrates”Los Angeles Times 13 February, pages A1, A14
24.
HealyM, 1998b, “Study says poverty persists for kids of working poor”Los Angeles Times 13 March
25.
HolbrookBJacksonP, 1996, “Shopping around: focus group research in north London”Area28136–142
26.
Hondagneu-SoteloP, 1994Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
27.
Hondagneu-SoteloPMessnerM, 1994, “Gender displays and men's power: the ‘new man’ and the Mexican immigrant man”, in Theorizing Masculinities Eds BrodHKaufmanH (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA) pp 200–218
28.
HorowitzR, 1983Honor and the American Dream: Culture and Identity in a Chicano Community (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ)
29.
HorowitzR, 1993, “The power of ritual in a Chicano community: a young woman's status and expanding family ties”Marriage and Family Review19257–280
30.
KitzingerJ, 1994, “The methodology of focus groups: the importance of interaction between research participants”Sociology of Health and Illness16103–121
31.
KoskelaH, 1997, “‘Bold walking and breakings’: women's spatial confidence versus fear of violence”Gender, Place and Culture4/3301–319
32.
LeesS, 1993Sugar and Spice: Sexuality and Adolescent Girls (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx)
33.
Legischool Project, 1995How Will We Care for Our Children? Adolescent Pregnancy and Public Policy in CaliforniaCollaborative project of the California State Legislature and California State University; Center for California Studies, California State University Sacramento, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA 95819-6081
34.
LeskoN, 1988, “The curriculum of the body: lessons from a Catholic high school”, in Becoming Feminine: The Politics of Popular Culture Ed. RomanL (Falmer Press, Philadelphia, PA) pp 123–142
35.
LukerK, 1996Dubious Conceptions: The Politics of Teenage Pregnancy (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
36.
MarshallJ, 1990, “Foucault and educational research”, in Foucault and Education: Discipline and Knowledge Ed. BallS (Routledge, London) pp 11–28
37.
MasseyD, 1994Space, Place and Gender (Polity Press, Cambridge)
38.
MooreH, 1994A Passion for Difference: Essays in Anthropology and Gender (Polity Press, Cambridge)
39.
NapolitanoV, 1997, “Becoming a mujercita: rituals, fiestas and religious discourses”Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute3279–296
40.
PesqueraB M, 1993, “‘In the beginning he wouldn't lift even a spoon’: the division of household labor”, in Building With Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies Eds de la TorreAPesqueraB M (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
41.
PetersonJ, 1998, “Clinton calls on Latinos to stay in school”Los Angeles Times 10 January, page A8
42.
PortesAMacLeodD, 1996, “What shall I call myself? Hispanic identity formation in the second generation”Ethnic and Racial Studies19523–547
43.
RaissiguierC, 1995, “The constructions of marginal identities: working-class girls of Algerian descent in a French school”, in Feminism/Postmodernism/Development Eds MarchandMParpartJ (Routledge, London) pp 19–93
44.
RuizV, 1990, “A promise fulfilled: Mexican cannery workers in Southern California”, in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in US Women's History Eds DuboisERuizV (Routledge, new York) pp 264–274
45.
SalzingerL, 1991, “A maid by any other name: the transformation of ‘dirty work’ by Central American immigrants”, in Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis Eds BurawoyMBurtonAFurgusonA (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA) pp 139–160
46.
SanchezG, 1993Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
47.
SeguraD, 1996, “Chicana and Mexican immigrant women at work: the impact of class, race and gender on occupational mobility”, in Race, Class and Gender: Common Bonds, Different Voices Eds ChowEWilkinsonDBaca ZinnM (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA) pp 149–164
StraussACorbinJ, 1990Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques (Sage, Newbury Park, CA)
50.
TseelonE, 1995The Masque of Femininity: The Presentation of Woman in Everyday Life (Sage, London)
51.
VigilJ, 1997Personal Mexicanas: Chicano High Schoolers in a Changing Los Angeles (Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Fort Worth, TX)
52.
VilaP, 1997, “Narrative identities: the employment of the Mexican on the US–Mexican Border”The Sociological Quarterly38147–183
53.
WatersM, 1990Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
54.
WilliamsN, 1990The Mexican American Family: Tradition and Change (General Hall, New York)
55.
YbarraL, 1982, “When wives work: the impact on the Chicano family”Journal of Marriage and the Family4469–78
56.
YoungI, 1990Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
57.
ZavellaP, 1997, “Reflections on diversity among Chicanas”, in Challenging Fronteras: Structuring Latina/o Lives in the US Eds RomeroMHondagneu-SoteloPOrtizV (Routledge, New York) pp 187–194
