"We Live in the Shadow": Inner-City Kids Tell Their Stories through Photographs by Elaine Bell Kaplan

Abstract

 2014 Children, Youth and Environments Children, Youth and Environments 24(1), 2014 “We Live in the Shadow”: Inner-City Kids Tell Their Stories through Photographs Elaine Bell Kaplan (2013). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 208 pages. $25.95 USD (paperback). ISBN #978-1-4399-0790-0. In the book We Live in the Shadow, Elaine Bell Kaplan demonstrates the value that can come from directly engaging in dialogue with youth about their lives. Through photographs and interviews, middle- and high-school students living in South Central Los Angeles provide an important and often overlooked insight relevant to a wide range of professionals: these youth see and articulate the neglect and disparaging attitudes that pervade the “ghetto” environment that also happens to be their home. Elaine Bell Kaplan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Southern California. She is also author of Not Our Kind of Girl: Unraveling the Myths of Black Teenage Motherhood and has published numerous articles about race, class and education. Through this research she seeks to understand how youth experience and respond to living conditions, family life, and school and neighborhood dynamics in South Central Los Angeles. Kaplan begins the book by framing her questions and introducing the Photovoice method as a participatory research tool to understand youth experiences and their motivation for participating in after-school programs. She then describes the historic, social and economic context of South Central L.A. and finally shares youths’ stories of their school and neighborhoods. Her research subjects are primarily youth involved with the Neighborhood Academic Initiative Program at the University of Southern California (USC), as well as youth from the Willard after-school program, tutors and students from USC, parents, school teachers, and administrators. Kaplan helps unveil the tragedy inner-city youth face when no one believes in them or provides appropriate care or support. Through her research, youth share the lack of respect they feel because of filthy school toilets and teachers who would rather eat burritos than teach, as well as the violence and danger most youth face in school and in their neighborhoods. Youth also give voice to their desire for better education and for teachers, administrators and city officials who care about them and their future. This book will appeal to educators and trainers of teachers who may work with racially and ethnically diverse youth in inner-city or other urban environments. It may help budding teachers understand that many inner city youth do not want to be stigmatized as “gang-bangers” and that they have a desire to learn and improve their lives. Kaplan offers new insights into social theories of inner-city youth, urging that youth Book Review: “We Live in the Shadow”: Inner-City Kids Tell Their Stories… 190 have more sophisticated understandings of their circumstances than previous research articulates. Kaplan helps shed light on ways that youth themselves look to larger social and structural causes for their life circumstances. In this vein, the book is helpful also to urban sociologists, planners, and community-based organizations who want to understand and make a difference in blighted urban neighborhoods. While South Central L.A. is perhaps one of the most extreme urban environments in the United States in terms of gang influence and violence, the lessons shared and approach taken by Kaplan apply to many other cities, both within the U.S. and internationally. Kaplan’s approach clearly emerges from ethnography and sociological research, yet there are other applications and uses of participatory photography that differ slightly from Kaplan’s approach. In other contexts, Photovoice methods have been used not only to promote photography training and dialogue but also to share this work through public forums. For example, Hilfinger Messias and colleagues (2008) used Photovoice not only to help youth articulate issues within their South Carolina community but also to promote youth as positive social change agents. Similarly, in the case of the Youth Services Initiative Photovoice project, the process of exhibiting work and receiving feedback helped change youths’ perceptions of themselves and also broadened the adult community’s perception of youth and their lives (Derr et al. 2013). I couldn’t help but wish that the...