Prom Night: Youth, Schools and Popular Culture
Author(s): Amy L. Best (Author)
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: August 23, 2000
- Language: English
- Print length: 240 pages
- ISBN-10: 0415924278
- ISBN-13: 9780415924276
Book Description
Best shows us that, while the prom is often trivialized, most kids take the prom seriously. The prom is a space where kids work through their understanding of authority, social class, gender norms, and multicultural schooling. Proms are more than just pictures and puffed sleeves–they are a mythic part of youth culture and, for better or worse, will always be a night to remember.
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
For many, the prom is the highlight of their high school senior year. For others, it is a time of expectations, transitions, and transformations. Best (sociology, San Jose State Univ.) looks at students’ prom experiences and the impacts they have had on their lives. She also examines the prom as a cultural icon, exploring its role within popular movies, the development of magazines surrounding the prom experience, and how the prom has changed in history. The author interviews students of different cultural and sexual identities and concludes that many feel that the prom is a “white” experience that ignores cultural differences and students with different gender identities. She also discusses how schools try to control the prom experience by, for instance, keeping students away from alcohol and other negative influences. One school even has students fill in a form, providing information on whom they will attend the prom with, for faculty approval. Best provides an interesting sociological study of the prom experience that will find a home in American studies, women’s studies, and sociology collections.DDanna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Prom is an event that almost all girls dream about attending during their years in high school. Parents, friends, and the media help to hype this end-of-the-school-year tradition. Best effectively combines interviews with students and school officials, alongside reviews of Hollywood and other media portrayals of the prom, to describe an event that is considered to be the culmination of one’s high-school career. Although the prom has evolved over the latter half of the twentieth century from being the first opportunity to play an adult role, e.g., wearing make-up and staying out late, into a chance to display wealth and social status, it is still considered by many to be an important rite of passage into adulthood. Prom Night is a collection of first-person accounts about the preparations, the event, and the after-prom parties. The schools used for this study are located mainly in the northeastern U.S. Best’s study provides insight into the thoughts and dreams of today’s youth. Julia Glynn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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