Urban Girls: Resisting Stereotypes, Creating Identities

Traditional psychology textbooks have ignored the normative development of urban girls and the unique situations they face on a daily basis. Lumped together with their suburban, mostly white and middle class counterparts, their voices are frequently subsumed within the larger study of adolescent development. Urban Girls is the first book to directly focus on the development of urban poor and working class adolescent girls. Including both quantitative and qualitative essays, and including contributions from psychologists, sociologists, and public health scholars, this volume explores the lives of a diverse group of girls from varying ethnic and class backgrounds. Topics covered include the identity development of Caribbean-American girls, the role of truth telling in the psychological development of African-American girls, relationships between mothers and daughters of different races and ethnicities, friendships, sexuality, health risks, career development, and other subjects of importance to human development. Filling a gap in the literature of human development, Urban Girls is sure to be of use to psychologists, sociologists, and social workers.