The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence

The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of AdolescenceAn "energetic," "provocative," and "much needed" investigation of the root causes of the epidemic of drug abuse, violence, and despair among middle class American teenagers (Los Angeles Times) In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed sociologist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliott Currie draws on years of interviews to offer a profound investigation of what has gone wrong for so many "mainstream" American adolescents. Rejecting such predictable answers

An "energetic," "provocative," and "much-needed" investigation of the root causes of the epidemic of drug abuse, violence, and despair among middle-class American teenagers (Los Angeles Times)

In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed sociologist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliott Currie draws on years of interviews to offer a profound investigation of what has gone wrong for so many "mainstream" American adolescents. Rejecting such predictable answers as TV violence, permissiveness, and inherent evil, Currie links this crisis to a pervasive "culture of exclusion" fostered by a society in which medications trump guidance and a punitive "zero tolerance" approach to adolescent misbehavior has become the norm. Broadening his inquiry, he dissects the changes in middle-class life that stratify the world into "winners" and "losers," imposing an extraordinarily harsh culture--and not just on kids.
Vivid, compelling, and deeply empathetic, The Road to Whatever is a stark indictment of a society that has lost the will--or the capacity--to care.