Hope, Help, and Friendship Between Poor, Teenaged Girls
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Looking Out: Hope, Help, and Friendship Between Poor, Teenaged Girls The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Sandelson, Jasmin A. 2019. Looking Out: Hope, Help, and Friendship Between Poor, Teenaged Girls. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42029471 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ! Looking Out: Hope, Help, and Friendship Between Poor, Teenaged Girls A dissertation presented by Jasmin Aviva Sandelson to The Committee on Higher Degrees in Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Sociology Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2019 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! "!#$%&!'()*+,!-.+.(!/(,012)3,4! -22!5+678)!51)15.104! ! ! ! ""! ! 9+))158(8+3,!-0.+)35):!;53<1))35!=(8871>!91)*3,0!! !!!!!!!!'()*+,!-.+.(!/(,012)3,! -,0!;53<1))35!Michèle ?(*3,8!! ! Looking Out: Hope, Help, and Friendship Between Poor, Teenaged Girls Abstract Experiences during adolescence can determine long-term life chances. Much research shows how, for poor teens, the peer group can be a risk factor. “Peer effects” spread risk behaviors, and peer influence threatens teens’ wellbeing and success. By contrast, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over four years with two cliques of poor teenaged girls in North Cambridge, Massachusetts, I show how young women helped each other cope, thrive, aspire, and achieve. Through their constant connection—facilitated, in part, by cell phones and social media—the girls sourced and generated a wide range of resources. By supporting one another day-to-day and also in times of strain, the girls’ friendships helped mitigate some of poverty’s burdens. The young women helped meet each other’s material needs, and in so doing, gave each other dignity and inclusion. Together they managed boredom, which researchers find can lead to petty crime for time-passing thrills. They coped jointly with emotional challenges—like instability, family conflict, and stigmatization—that they faced at home, at school, in the neighborhood, and in their community. And as girls struggled when it came to boys and dating, they tried to support one another, even when peer support """! proved less effective in this realm than others. The girls’ friendships offered vital support, so they fought for their relationships when they were threatened. After traumas, including local violence or the death of peers, the girls had a patterned response to crises. Their digital rituals for mourning diverged from adult expectations, but helped the girls shield each other from downward spirals, while protecting their friendships. And, when old bonds were tested by new differences as some girls started dabbling with risk behaviors, they used a moral and interactional pragmatism to defend their relationships, rather than seeking the behavioral homophily that researchers typically find in peer groups. This shared aid was one factor helping the girls reach their dreams of getting to college. But they all struggled when—in addition to the financial, logistical, and cultural obstacles that face low-income, first-generation college students—they lost the peer support on which they had long relied. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! "#! ! ! "#$%&!'(!)'*+&*+,!! ! -@A,3>2106*1,8)BBBBBBBBB44BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB44B.+! %4!C,8530D@8+3,!BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB44B4#! !"#$%&'%!((#)%"*+%!#,-.(/%0,.12*3% 2. Broke: Material Support …………………………………………………………..28 3. Bored: Social Support .…………………………………………………………….65 4. Emotional Support and Breakdown …………………..……………….…………100 5. Bodies, Boyfriends, and Sex .……………………………………….…..………..135 !"#$%4'%56(%!((#%7#,89%:*+(#%56#("$%! E4!F1@7,3236+1)!3<!F5(D*(BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB4444444444444BBB%GH! G4!I53>+,6!JK!(,0!-K(58BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB44BBBB4BB4B#%%! !"#$%;'%<=$(#%7#"+8"$2,*! L4!M322161!N3D,0:!/85D6621!(,0!/DKK358!3,!M(*KD)4BBBBBBBB4BBBB#H%! &4!M3,@2D)+3,BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB4BBB4BB#&#! F713518+@(2!-001,0D*BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB444O%O! P1<151,@1)!BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB4BBOH%! ! ! ! ! ! #! Acknowledgements To the young women in this dissertation, thank you for teaching me, for tolerating me, and for your friendship. I tend to think that to write about people is to take something from them. Though we might give something in return—and likely, we hope to—something, still, is seized. Thank you for all that you shared with me. I hope what follows does some justice to your creativity, intelligence, and imagination. Ethnography is more than a method of sociological research: it is a way of seeing, of moving through the world. Matt Desmond taught me that. Matt—each piece of advice you ever gave me was correct bar one: when, in 2012 over a bar of chocolate at the Society of Fellows, you suggested I work with a more senior advisor. I’m glad I ignored you. I’m glad I listened all the other times, though, like when you told me to keep working on the project I started in your class, then to move to the neighborhood, then to write a book. Your vision and unflinching confidence, when I often lacked both, made this all possible. Over the years, you marked up many hundreds of pages: paper drafts and chapter drafts and eventually, manuscript drafts. Your marginalia—as Haikus, as Kanye lyrics, and as skull- and-crossbones doodles—made me a better writer and thinker. Thank you for advising me with no agenda, and for helping me find my voice. Thank you for letting me glimpse your fierce, contagious brilliance. You are a mentor of the highest order, a teacher in the truest way. Michèle Lamont—you have been an extraordinary and generous role model ever since you sent me a welcome email in March 2011, shortly after I was accepted into the program. I had just read How Professors Think for a paper on notions of excellence in academia, and I nearly fell off the rickety desk chair in my drafty old dorm room. I have #"! been endlessly inspired by your majestic command of this discipline, and your tireless commitment to your students. I am grateful for all of the opportunities you have brought me, not just as your student, but also as your teaching assistant, workshop co-organizer and CIFAR rapporteur in Vancouver. I am also grateful for your warmth and encouragement, always. Mary Waters—thank you for asking tough questions, encouraging me to go deeper, and guiding me to consider the full implications of this work. I have been deeply inspired by the type of scholarship you have modeled: one that is engaged, compassionate, and rigorous. Thank you for welcoming what I felt were stupid questions, and responding with your characteristic kindness and thoughtfulness. Over the past several years, many other faculty members gave me comments or encouragement that—likely unbeknownst to them—I needed, and took to heart. Thank you Bart Bonikowski, Alice Goffman, Tamara Kay, Mario Small, Robert Smith, Bruce Western, and Chris Winship. Back in the day, Jackie Scott, Patrick Baert, and John Thomspon first lured me down the path that led to this point. I thank the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Education / Spencer Foundation, the Joint Center for Housing Studies, and the Center for American Political Studies for funding. I owe a great debt to the sociology department staff, the heroes of William James Hall, for making eight years of graduate school logistically possible. Thank you Lisa Albert, Odette Binder, Nancy Branco, Deb De Laurell, Dotty Lukas, Jessica Matteson, Suzanne Ogungbadero, Michael Van Unen, and, at Princeton, Katie Krywokulski. Special #""! thanks to Laura Thomas, my American Mom, for the hugs, Hershey’s kisses, and belly laughs. Your office was a sun-trap on the gloomiest of days. Other colleagues I thank for intellectual and emotional support include Laura Adler, Stefan Beljean, Monica Bell, Curtis Chan, Kelley Fong, Jeffrey Lane, Jeremy Levine, Chris Muller, Eva Rosen, and Adam Travis. Eleni Arzoglou, my guru—your intellect and spirit were beacons of light as I waded through the dark waters of protracted youth. Your passion and wisdom guided me, from love to haircuts. Matt Clair, thank you for inspiring me with your facility of thought and sharpness of mind, and for lifting me with a very great deal of laughter. Carly Knight, I am dazzled by your unassuming genius and endless generosity, and thrilled we get to live in the same place. Ekédi Mpondo-Dika, your effortless brilliance and big heart make me want to be a better sociologist, and person. Tom Wooten, thank you for being my cheerleader, for your keen perspicacity, and for leading the way. Theo Leenman—my work wife, my rock. When we met on Visit Day in 2011 and made small talk about Adele, I did not know that half of our cohort would wind up psychiatrically medicated in order to graduate. And, though I knew we would be friends, I could not foresee the role you would play in my life. I have learned so much from your politics, eloquence, limber intelligence, and unparalleled knack for crafting emails. Thank you for the advice, adventures, and forever friendship. To Brielle Bryan and Jared Schachner—the other two members of Salsa Squad and the best group chat iMessage has ever known—thank you for making this whole thing fun. The one thing I dislike about New York is its distance from San Francisco, Houston, and LA. You’re gifted and special humans, with whom I am honored to have been dragged through this obstacle course. #"""! Across the pond and around the world, I thank the brilliant, multitalented Stephanie Edwards, for a decade of learning and laughing. Our Boston to Beijing Facetimes brought me such joy, as did our travels, both smug and disastrous, from the Great Wall of China to the great tsunami of San Diego.