The Road to Whatever: Middle-class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence Reprint edition

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.