Girls Behind Bars

While scholarship on the education of youth behind bars has largely focused on boys more than one in three youth arrests in the United States is female. <i>Girls Behind Bars</i> sets out to address this imbalance.<br/><br/>First the book offers autobiographies life-stories and counter-stories in order to counter simplistic generalizations and empirical prescriptions. Next the study provides the educational community with critical perspectives that examine empiricist epistemologies and positivist methodologies that label certain groups of girls as delinquent and mark them for punitive and corrective treatment behind bars. Third the book opens up the discussion on girls' gender desire and sexuality by offering a language for these issues absent in educational discourse. Finally the book supports calls for educators and practitioners in their desire to envision and create transformative spaces that enable young girls behind bars to reclaim their education. <br/><br/>Including a foreword by William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn this important and powerful book gives voice to a neglected silenced and misrepresented population - young girls behind bars.