FURSTENBERG, Frank F. Jr., Thomas D. COOK, Jacquelynne ECCLES, Glen H. ELDER, Jr., and Arnold SAMEROFF, MANAGING TO MAKE IT: Urban Families and Adolescent Success

Abstract

FURSTENBERG, Frank F Jr., Thomas D. COOK, Jacquelynne ECCLES, Glen H. ELDER, Jr., and Arnold SAMEROFF, MANAGING TO MAKE IT: Urban Families and Adolescent Success. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1999, 305 pp., $ 32.50 hardcover / $17.00 softcover. When five academics get together to write a book, one might expect that it would never be published: it would take forever for them to agree on anything. This book on families and neighborhoods, however, shows the positive benefits of such collaboration. Very well written and methodologically sound, it provides the reader with plenty of quantitative information, peppered with illustrative examples from in-depth qualitative interviews. The central theme of the book is how parents, especially poor and working class parents, manage the resources available to them to protect their children and promote their chances of success. The book is centered on research conducted in the inter city neighborhood of Philadelphia in the early 1990s and is divided into ten chapters, each of which covers an important aspect of studying the family. The first chapter of the book outlines the authors' theoretical perspective. Chapter two describes how the areas studied were selected and provides details of the sample. Chapter three explores the measurements of adolescent success for the subjects of this study. Chapter four looks at parental management strategies. Parents employ preventative strategies to manage risk in order to protect their children from harm. At the same time, parents seek opportunities to develop and promote their children's abilities. Neighborhoods have significant effects on the use of preventative measures, such as monitoring and discipline. Parents in low-resource neighborhoods are faced with greater levels of risk for their children, so they are forced to put more emphasis on risk management in order to protect their children. This in turn has an effect on the ability of adolescents in these areas to develop their sense of autonomy. Chapter five explores how parenting efforts affect behaviors of disadvantaged adolescents. Chapter six addresses an additional consideration of the impact of parenting on adolescent competence by questioning the effect of parental and household resources on adolescent wellbeing. Chapter seven explores how neighborhood characteristics are related to family management and consequently adolescent success. Chapter eight addresses issues of how to identify high-risk environments and family management practices that may mitigate the consequences of unfavorable conditions on the success of adolescents - referred to as a `risk-and-resiliency' framework. It is suggested that the adolescent period of an individual's life is frequently marked by opportunities to improve skills and may also be fraught with setbacks. Evidence in prior chapters of the book suggests that the advantages and disadvantages experienced by youths and families tend to accumulate over time, ensuring a level of continuity in life experiences. …