Reading Youth Writing

Book excerpt: This book aims to provide new insights into the complexities of theorizing contemporary adolescent literacies. It proposes a theoretical approach to understanding youth cultural production which addresses several lacunae in the field of new literacy research. Through a series of examinations of youth «writing» both inside and outside of school, the book builds an approach to the study of contemporary youth expression that draws on the theoretical and methodological insights of cultural studies. The voices of youth are central, and both the content and form of what they have to say ground the project. Reading Youth Writing is intended for a cross-disciplinary academic audience: it will be of particular interest to scholars and both undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of education, new literacy, cultural studies, communications and media studies, rhetoric and composition studies, sociology, and sociolinguistics. Since the content is based on youth cultural production in a period of economic and cultural globalization, the book has relevance to a broad international audience.