| Abstract: | In this research, I contend that domestic violence is thoroughly embedded in the lives of a group of poor, white, middle school males living in an urban section of the postindustrial Northeast. The scope of the investigation spans one year of observation and interviews with 18 poor youth as they went about their days—at their bilingual school, on neighborhood streets, and in the local community center. By not disrupting the violent attitudes and tendencies expressed among those boys, I argue, the institutions around which their lives were patterned become implicated in the normalization of abusive behavior. |
