The goal of this book is to encourage educators and researchers to understand the complexities of adolescent gang members' lives in order to rethink their assumptions about these students in school. The particular objective is to situate four gang members as literate, caring students from loving families whose identities and literacy keep them on the margins of school. The research described in this book suggests that advocacy is a particularly effective form of critical ethnography. Smith and Whitmore argue that until schools, as communities of practice, enable children and adolescents to...

Encourages educators and researchers to understand the complexities of adolescent gang members' lives in order to rethink their assumptions about these students in school. This book is useful for education researchers, professionals, and students in the areas of middle/high school education, and alternative community programs.