How do young black students respond, resist, and work to transform their school experience? How do young people adapt, survive, and then succeed in spite of their negative school experience? For an increasing number of marginalized black youth, the paths to social success can actually lie outside school walls.

Black Youth Matters presents a compelling, empirical picture of black youth who creatively respond to permanent school exclusion. Structural approaches to social stratification often set the terms of discussion around isolated narratives of individual "success...