American Boy Research Articles

This Is Your Propaganda, Kids

This article examines war propaganda as reflected during World War I in three prominent United States children's magazines: American Boy, St. Nicholas, and The Rally. War themes in these primary sources were evaluated, using a framework (the Myth of the War Experience) developed by George Mosse. For children, a militarized approach to daily life could teach them valuable skills and virtues, and propaganda presented war as not an event to fear or dread but as one to welcome and even covet. This study concluded that American children's publication editors generally employed the myths as outlined by Mosse but with some differences. Missing from this propaganda were traits that did not help to build the Myth. These included values of independent thought and action, toleration, and pacifism.

‘Niggaz dyin’ don’t make no news’: exploring the intellectual work of an African American urban adolescent boy in an after-school program

In this article, and from the standpoint of an African American woman teacher/researcher, the author explores what happened when one African American adolescent boy known inside of school as a ‘severely disengaged’ student cultivated literacy practices and events of his own volition in an after-school program. The author asks, how does race and gender consciousness intersect one African American urban adolescent boy’s engagements with a favored popular culture narrative after school? Race and gender consciousness, in the context of this study, refers to the ways individuals and/or groups publicize, illustrate, critically articulate and/or question race and gender constructs stated or suggested in various texts. The author argues that students’ race and gender consciousness speak to and intermingle with intellectual work and literate abilities; further, the author argues that attention to such work and consciousness provides valuable information about the aptitude, sensitivities and motivations of students who are labeled ‘disengaged’ and/or socially ‘challenged’ in multiple contexts. As a result, this research speaks to an international audience because it conveys the processes by which engagements with texts can spur intellectual work by a student placed at risk of academic and social failure.

Sulcolluma mirbatensis McCoy, an unique new species from the Sultanate of Oman

Lying at the base Jebel Samhan, Dhofar’s highest mountain, the small coastal village of Mirbat, Oman has an interesting history. The name Mirbat in Arabic means “a place to tie up or stable horses ”. Although the exact reason for Mirbat acquiring this name has been lost in antiquity, it would seem to be a reference to a former stable or export center of Arabian horses at this site. In former times, Mirbat was a well known stop on the frankincense route. Frankincense, a highly revered incense, produced by the South Arabian plant Boswellia sacra Flueck. was a very important commodity in these areas in the not so distant past, and it was from these trade centers that it found its way to the Mediterranean and beyond. What seems to be the most interesting fact in Mirbat’s history is that it was here in the early 1800’s, that the rogue pirate, Muhammed Aqil Ajaibi settled with his private army of over 500 African slaves to rule as governor of the region, when he gave up his buccaneering way of life. During his time of piracy, Muhammed Aqil captured an American ship in the Red Sea, taking with him a 10-year-old American boy hostage. In the ensuing years, Aqil raised him as his own, training the boy in the arts of piracy. The young boy also converted to Islam and was given the Muslim name Abdullah Lorleyd. When his surrogate father changed his swashbuckling ways to settle in the Dhofar, Abdullah joined him taking a wife and later raising a family as well. In 1829 Muhammed Aqil was assassinated as he left the fort he had built in Mirbat. His murder, no doubt prompted by his earlier exploits, left his young, kidnapped American protege to rule as the new governor of Dhofar marking a strange chapter in Omani history. It is from this area on the south-west coast of Oman, in Southern Arabia that the new species of stapeliad described in the following text occurs. The genus Sulcolluma Plowes is a small group of stapeliads characterized by the fact that all exhibit a supra-dental groove in the upper surface of their stem teeth. All the presently described species of Sulcolluma are known only from either Yemen or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, so it is of great interest to add now an Omani species to the group. The most distinctive feature of S. mirbatensis, is its erect inner corona lobes, unlike the other members of the genus whose have their inner corona lobes incumbent on the anthers. Another important character is that S. mirbatensis possesses the smallest flowers of the group. Also of note is the fact that Sulcolluma mirbatensis is found growing on granite, instead of the much more prominent limestone, which forms the greater part of the Dhofar. This new species occurrence here in the far eastern edge of the Dhofar region marks this as the eastern most representative of the genus Sulcolluma. In recent times, varying views have been put forth regarding the taxonomy of the genus Sulcolluma Plowes. It has been suggested that it contains only one species, S. hexagona Lavranos, though the proponent of this view seems to have had little, if any, experience of this exclusively Arabian genus in the field. Apart from an evident underestimation of the considerable and constant floral

Unusual Hematologic Disease Affecting Caucasian Children Traveling to Southeast Asia: Acquired Platelet Dysfunction with Eosinophilia

An 11-year-old American boy was staying with his family in Indonesia. He presented with a 5-month history of recurrent bruises and ecchymosis. A clinical diagnosis of acquired platelet dysfunction with eosinophilia was made when his full blood counts showed hypereosinophilia (7.4×109/L) with normal platelet count and gray platelets under the microscope. The diagnosis was supported by abnormal platelet aggregation tests consistent with a storage pool disorder. The bleeding symptoms and eosinophilia resolved a month later with a full course of antihelminthic therapy. Hematologists should be aware of this unusual disease in travelers returning from the Southeast Asia.

Index of Suspicion * Case 1: Lymphadenopathy, Prolonged Hematuria, Proteinuria, and Weight Loss in a Teenage Boy * Case 2: Red, Swollen, Painful Eye in a 12-year-old Boy With Methylmalonic Acidemia * Case 3: Ptosis and Diplopia After a Respiratory Infection in a 7-year-old Girl

* Abbreviations: ACE: : angiotensin converting enzyme CNIII: : cranial nerve III CNS: : central nervous system CSF: : cerebrospinal fluid CT: : computed tomography ESR: : erythrocyte sedimentation rate Ig: : immunoglobulin LN: : lupus nephritis RBC: : red blood cell SLE: : systemic lupus erythematosus TB: : tuberculosis WBC: : white blood cell A 14-year-old African American boy presents with fever, right-sided neck swelling, and weight loss of 20 lb over 2-month period. He denies night sweats, illness contacts, or recent travel. He was seen 1 month ago for fatigue, body aches, decreased appetite, and 10 lb weight loss over the previous month. Due to a family history of diabetes, urinalysis was performed, which revealed moderate hemoglobin, protein of 200 mg/dL, white blood cell (WBC) count of 13/high power field, and red blood cell (RBC) count of 5/high power field. He was scheduled to be re-evaluated in 1 week but has been lost to follow-up. The boy appears tired. His weight is 54.2 kg (>50th percentile), height is 165 cm (75th percentile), temperature is 38.9°C, heart rate is 106 beats/minute, respiratory rate is 20 breaths/minute, and blood pressure is 113/64 mm Hg. Physical examination reveals a 3 × 4 cm, tender, nonerythematous, nonfluctuant, slightly mobile right cervical mass located behind the sternocleidomastoid muscle. Findings on the rest of the examination are normal. Complete blood count reveals a WBC count of 5.5 × 103/μL, with 65% granulocytes, 30% lymphocytes, and 5% monocytes, platelet count of 267 × 103/μL, hemoglobin level 9.5 g/dL, hematocrit 29%, mean corpuscular volume 71 fL, RBC distribution width 15.2%, and normal peripheral smear. His erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) is 65 mm/h, and C-reactive protein (CRP) level is 1.081 mg/dL. Metabolic panel reveals a sodium concentration of 141 mEq/L, potassium 4.5 mEq/L, chloride 111 mEq/L, bicarbonate 24 mEq/L, serum urea nitrogen 33 mg/dL, creatinine 1.7 mg/dL, total protein 6 g/dL, and albumin 1.9 g/dL. Urinalysis reveals a protein of 200 mg/dL and rare granular casts. Chest radiograph is normal. Blood and urine cultures are obtained, and a tuberculin test is performed on admission. Additional evaluation reveals the …

Sudden Death After Exercise in an Adolescent With Hemoglobin SE

Hemoglobin (Hb) S and Hb E are the most common variant hemoglobins, but because of the geographical separation of the areas where they are prevalent, the combination of the 2 is uncommon. Approximately 46 cases of hemoglobin SE compound heterozygosity have been reported. No deaths from the condition have been reported previously, whereas death after vigorous physical activity in individuals with sickle cell trait (hemoglobin AS) has been described in a few case reports. Here we report previously undiagnosed hemoglobinopathy SE in a 12-year-old American boy who collapsed during football practice and had a cardiac arrest on the field after a brief lucid interval. The autopsy was significant only for postmortem intravascular sickling. A postmortem hemoglobin electrophoresis test revealed 57% S, 34% E, and 1% F hemoglobins. The death is attributed to cardiac ischemia from functional vaso-occlusion by sickled erythrocytes.

Southern Patriarchy and the Figure of the White Woman in Gwendolyn Brooks’s “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon”

The murder of Emmett Till in 1955, and the subsequent acquittal of his murderers and public viewings of Till's mutilated body, stirred the American consciousness and provoked outrage across the country. In 1960, Gwendolyn Brooks published her own response in the form of A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon. Though the political nature of the poem is not unusual, considering Brooks's position as a poet writing during the 1950s and '60s, it is unusual for Brooks to use the perspective of a white American. She adopts this stance to examine Southern patriarchy and the myth of chivalry as they are implicated in Till's death, and ultimately, to condemn both the myth and the white woman's desire for its fulfillment. The irony of the romantic role of damsel being applied to a beleaguered housewife, that of hero to an insecure and immature man, and that of villain to a defenseless boy reveals not only the meaninglessness of using the myth as an excuse to commit violence, but also the absurdity of the myth as a fantasy in the first place. Brooks's apparent sympathy for the white woman as the pawn of domineering white men is subverted as she deconstructs the romance within the woman's mind and thereby holds the woman responsible for her complicity in the myth, and consequently, in the murder. This analysis of Brooks's poem demonstrates how Brooks uses the figure of the white woman both to criticize her and to denounce Southern ideology itself. In A Bronzeville Mother, Brooks is not merely condemning particular white men as murderers, or attacking Southern society in general for its practice of lynching; above all, Brooks is insisting that white women shoulder some responsibility for the violence carried out in their names. Any close reading of Brooks's poem must first consider the context of Till's murder and Brooks's subsequent composition of A Bronzeville Mother. At the time of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Brooks seeing the world in a new way, and was becoming absorbed into the national black consciousness of rising expectations (Kent 118). The time following Brown was also critical for African Americans in Mississippi, in part because the decision launched white Mississippians into a frenzied defense of the state's way of life. In the years between the decision and the publication of Brooks's A Bronzeville Mother, the state passed sweeping legislation that made it extremely difficult for blacks (and poor whites) to go to school, censored television broadcasts and other media, interfered with black voting rights, banned books and required white supremacist reading be provided to schools and libraries, enabled spying on critics and activist organizations, and then made it illegal to advocate, urge or encourage 'disobedience to any law of the State of Mississippi, and nonconformance with the established traditions, customs, and usages of the State of Mississippi' (Dittmer 59). Also, since white supremacists made the state's laws and established its customs, it is little wonder that Brown was declared invalid and unconstitutional (59), or that the following year, two men who murdered a fourteen-year-old African American boy were acquitted. Though Mississippi saw at least seven politically motivated murders in 1955 alone, it was the murder of Emmett Till that brought intense media attention to Mississippi and its lynching custom in the early years of the civil rights era. The court case in Mississippi, the public viewing of Till's body in Chicago, and the photographs of Till's mutilated face heightened Americans' awareness of the persistence of racial violence--especially in the Deep South, and particularly in Mississippi. (1) White supremacist violence against African Americans was so common that it was not particularly shocking when a black man was murdered in Mississippi; Till's age and, to a great degree, his mother's vocal outrage and public action made his death newsworthy. …

Thalassemia-like Phenotype in a Novel Complex Hemoglobinopathy With α, β, δ Globin Chain Abnormalities

The occurrence of multiple abnormalities of α, β, δ, and γ globin genes may lead to unusual and complex phenotypes when they arise simultaneously in the same individual. Here, we report the findings of an African American boy who coinherited 3 heterozygous globin gene abnormalities: the unstable β-globin chain variant; hemoglobin (Hb) Showa-Yakushiji [β110(G12) Leu→Pro], the δ-globin chain variant; HbB2 [δ16(A13) Gly→Arg] and α-thalassemia (α-thal); (α-/αα). Hb Showa-Yakushiji had been previously described in Japanese, Indian, and European populations. We report its first occurrence in a child of African ancestry who presented with anemia not responsive to iron and an incomplete β-thalassemia minor phenotype. Although the clinical and laboratory features of Hb Showa-Yakushiji mimic those of a β-thalassemia, the coinheritance of the δ-globin chain variant Hb B2 suppressed the relative increase in Hb A2 usually observed in heterozygotes for the Hb Showa-Yakushiji mutation. Protein-based methods detected only a trace amount of HbB2 and failed to reveal presence of Hb Showa-Yakushiji and α-thal. The latter were only identified through DNA analyses. The diagnostic difficulties, molecular characteristics, and genotype/phenotype correlations of this novel complex hemoglobinopathy syndrome are reviewed.

Unaccustomed Earth: The West and India in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Narrative

This article focuses on the representations of the West and of India in Jhumpa Lahiri’s fiction through the analysis of one of her more significant short stories, “Mrs. Sen’s”, appearing in her collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999; Pulitzer Prize, 2000). In this short story, Lahiri uses most of the recurrent discursive strategies, themes, and motifs of her fiction, such as the use of the point of view of children, the female identity and loneliness, strangeness as a means to represent the human condition, and colours and food as cultural difference. “Mrs. Sen’s” is the story of the meeting of two kinds of loneliness and two cultures, that of an American boy, Eliot and that of his Bengali babysitter, Mrs Sen. The analysis of the short story is inducive, in that it focuses on the images of the text as they gradually come to the reader’s imagination. It emerges that the representations of India and the West, i.e. United States in this short story, are antithetically built through the opposition of colour/non-colour, noise/silence, full/empty, hot/cold, covered/naked, and smell/odourlessness. Through Eliot’s unmasking point of view, these antitheses will prove the “accustomed earth”, the United States, to be as strange to him as to Mrs Sen; while Mrs Sen’s India will appear a warmer and more comfortable place, although far beyond their reach.

Sinus histiocytosis with massive lymphadenopathy Rosai-Dorfman disease: a unique case presentation

Rosai and Dorfman first described sinus histiocytosis with massive lymphadenopathy (SHML) in 1969 with an article detailing 4 cases in which they differentiated this disease entity from the grouping of diseases categorized as histiocytosis X, where it was previously classified. Also known as Rosai-Dorfman disease (RDD), it is clinically characterized as massive, painless, bilateral, symmetric cervical lymphadenopathy, with fever and leukocytosis. An 11-year-old African American boy was referred to our clinic for extraction of a severely decayed tooth #30 and evaluation of a large right-sided neck mass. Initially, the patient had been seen by his general dentist who had diagnosed the mass as an odontogenic abscess. After 2 courses of different antibiotics, no changes in the mass were noted. Subsequently, the patient was sent to the emergency department where CT revealed multiple right-sided neck masses with the largest measuring 4 × 2 cm. The patient underwent an incisional biopsy by otolaryngology and a diagnosis of necrotic lymph tissue was made. Upon our examination, the carious tooth #30 was felt to be an incidental finding and fine-needle aspiration cytology of the largest mass was performed in 2 places. This also provided a diagnosis of necrotic lymph tissue. In concert with the patient and his mother, the decision was made to excise the mass because of psychosocial concerns. A massive right-sided lymph node attached to the submandibular gland was found and excised without complication. Histologic examination with S-100 stain confirmed a diagnosis of RDD. The patient healed well following surgery and has experienced no further lymphadenopathy. This case presentation and review of the literature is unique, as the patient presented with unilateral cervical lymphadenopathy only. Open biopsy and 2 fine-needle aspirations all returned as necrotic lymph tissue. Obtaining the correct diagnosis was additionally hampered by coincidental dental pathology on the affected side and final diagnosis was made only by excisional biopsy, which is not necessarily indicated in cases of RDD.

S100‐Negative Indeterminate Cell Histiocytosis in an African American Child Responsive to Narrowband Ultraviolet B

Indeterminate cell histiocytosis is a rare cutaneous disease characterized by the presence of dendritic cells that lack Birbeck granules and immunophenotypically shares features of both Langerhans cells and macrophages. We describe a case of a 4-year-old African American boy affected by a disseminated, exclusively mucocutaneous form of indeterminate cell histiocytosis. The eruption was successfully treated with narrowband ultraviolet B. The peculiar negativity of the Langerhans cell marker S100 is also discussed.

Alteration in Hair Texture Following Regrowth in Alopecia Areata

Alopecia areata is a common cause of hair loss seen in 3.8% of patients in dermatology clinics and in 0.2% to 2.0% of the general US population. The pathology of the disease remains poorly understood. Hair loss in alopecia areata can range from a single patch to 100% loss of body hair. When hair regrowth occurs in alopecia areata, the new hair may demonstrate pigment alterations, but a change in hair texture (ie, curly or straight) has rarely been reported as a consequence of alopecia areata. We report a case of a 13-year-old African American boy who experienced an alteration of hair shape following regrowth after alopecia areata. The new hair recapitulated his hair shape from early childhood. The precipitating factor for a change in hair texture in alopecia areata may be a result of treatment, pathophysiologic changes, or a combination of both. Whether the change is triggered at the level of stem cell differentiation, by cytokine or hormonal influences, gene expression during hair follicle development, a combination of all of these, or an unknown cause is a question that remains to be answered.

“My mom says I’m really creative!”: Dis/Ability, Positioning, and Resistance in Multimodal Instructional Contexts

How do the children in our classrooms get identified as certain “types” of students, as “disabled” or as “competent”? What factors bear on who the children in our classrooms are able to be? How might exploring the answers to these questions lead us to create classroom communities that are more inclusive, livable, and equitable? Beginning with this inquiry, Collins explores how multimodal forms of literacy and varieties of social positioning contribute to shaping students’ identities in classrooms. She shares the story of Christopher, an African American boy labeled “deficient” by the school he attends. Drawing on a variety of literacy tools present within his teacher’s multimodal instruction, Christopher worked to be recognized as competent within his classroom community. His efforts to do so illustrate how classroom interactions and instructional choices work to position children as “normal” or as “deficient.”

A Congenital Case of Circumscribed Acral Hypokeratosis

Circumscribed acral hypokeratosis is a disorder characterized by areas of erythematous depressed skin with distinct histopathological findings typically found on the palmar and plantar surfaces. Most patients are middle-aged women who report a multiyear history. We present an 10-year-old African American boy who had an asymptomatic, irregularly shaped erythematous lesion on his left medial foot that had been present since birth. A biopsy showed an abrupt, well-demarcated decrease in the thickness of the stratum corneum layer, with no parakeratosis, that was consistent with a diagnosis of circumscribed hypokeratosis. This represents the first pediatric and congenital case of circumscribed hypokeratosis reported. We review the literature and discuss the ramifications of a congenital case on understanding the etiology of circumscribed hypokeratosis.

The Ethics of Violence

This article analyzes classroom discussions of Boaz Yakin's 1994 film Fresh—an unsettling urban drama about a young boy (Fresh) who devises a creative escape from the drug dealers in his environment: he buys a large amount of cocaine that he uses to trick those dealers into thinking that they're all trying to break into each others' markets. In the end, he turns these negative and violent forces against each other and then enters the Witness Protection Program. The social commentary in the film is paramount since it highlights the disturbing cultural reasons why a twelve–year-old African American boy has to devise his own escape from the inner city. Most important, class discussions of (as well as the writing assignments focused on) Yakin's film necessarily confront the role that class hierarchies play in America as well as the cultural myths—like the unconditional individual—that affect many of our expectations and assumptions. Herein resides the film's pedagogical importance: it offers an intensely emotional and intellectual challenge to many of our foundational understandings of American values and cultural narratives. That is, it critiques the problematic rationalizations (like “the just-world phenomenon”) that seek to not only dis-empower but also neglect whole segments of American society.

Racial Inequities in Mortality and Access to Health Care

On February 25, 2007, a twelve-year-old African American boy named Deamonte Driver died of a toothache because he never received a routine $80 tooth extraction that may have saved him, which was covered by his insurer: Medicaid. Unable to afford $80 or find a dentist that took Medicaid, Deamonte wound up in the emergency room, underwent two brain surgeries, and was in the hospital for six weeks of treatment, which cost approximately $250,000. In the end, Deamonte still died from a brain infection caused by the spread of the bacteria from the abscess in his month. While Deamonte did not die as a result of disparate treatment based on his race, his death occurred because of the disparate impact of income inequality on minorities. Specifically, minorities are disproportionately poor and lack health insurance or rely on government health insurance, such as Medicaid. As a result, they are disproportionately denied access to health care because either they cannot afford to pay or physicians will not accept patients covered under government health insurance. Wholly avoidable, Deamonte’s death is a glaring example of the perils of the United States’ policy of rationing access to health care based on ability to pay and how this policy exacerbates racial inequities in health care.However, most U.S. citizens, including members of the U.S. Congress deny that rationing occurs in the United States. For instance, during the recent battle over health care reform Republicans asserted that health care reform would lead to rationing of care, while Democrats vigorously denied that the United States rations or that health care reform would result in rationing. This rhetoric fails to acknowledge the reality of some 46 million Americans who lack access to health care: rationing of health care already exists in the United States. In fact, access to health care in the United States has been rationed for decades based on a person’s ability to pay. This system of rationing, which serves as a means to allocate scarce resources, has lead to an untold number of deaths. Scholars have written about the rationing phenomena and proposed cost-benefit solutions. However, the disproportionate effect that current and proposed rationing methods have on minorities has been ignored. My article begins to fill this void by not only demonstrating how the current rationing policy disproportionately affect minorities and exacerbates racial inequities in health care, but also by illustrating why current cost-benefit proposals will not benefit minorities. Specifically, Section II briefly reviews rationing policies in the United States and general problems with the policies. Section III examines empirical data illustrating how rationing health care based on ability to pay has a disparate impact on African Americans. Section IV discusses whether current rationing policy based on the ability to pay is race neutral, or merely an example of structural racial bias. In Section V, I critique the proposed cost-benefit solution to improving rationing methods and suggest that rationing care without addressing structural bias will only exacerbate racial inequities in health care.

Klart slut varulvstjut – den litterära pojkhumorn och exemplet Bert

“Literary boy homour and the books about Bert as an example”. In this article I outline the roots of boy humour in children’s literature. In Swedish tradition this category is intimately associated with the genre “tjuvpojksboken”(stories about young rascals). I argue that one important condition for the development of a humour of this kind, are the concept of the boy as a gentle savage, a central character in boyology. A discourse comprising descriptive and prescriptive writing on boyhood across a variety of genres. In Making American Boys (2004) Kenneth B. Kidd shows how the boyologists of the early twentieth century reworked themes and tropes they picked up from the American Boy Book (like Aldrich, Twain, and Tarkington); foremost the idea of the wildness of boys as a necessary step in becoming a man. Another important condition for boy humour is that the stories are told from the boy’s perspective, which in turn makes way for different boy’s discourses, such as “slanguage”. After examining the issue from a historical point-of-view, I turn to Anders Jacobsson’s and Sören Olsson’s popular books about the boy Bert (23 books between 1987–2010), with focus on the first title Berts dagbok [Bert’s diary]. Here I concentrate on three characteristic features: the carnivalesque degrading of the adult world, the grotesque realism (the world interpreted through the boy’s bodily experience), and play on words, such as rhymes, puns, jokes and deliberately misreading of foreign and difficult words. My point is that the readers (boys) through channels like this, learn the humorous discourse and that it creates intimate bonds between the narrator and the readers.Keywords: boy humour, boyology, bad boy books, Anders Jacobsson & Sören Olsson

Bättre rustad än de andra?

Better Equipped Than Others? Georg’s Path to Manhood in Sigfrid Siwertz’ Novel Mälarpirater.
 In this article I argue that Sigfrid Siwertz’ Mälarpirater (Pirates of Lake Mälaren, 1911) is dominated by two main discourses. The first, as mentioned previously in other research, is Henri Bergson’s philosophy of free will (as Siwertz conceives of it). The other concerns the construction of the boy, and derives from the idea of a distinct boy culture and the concept of the boy as gentlesavage. In his article “Boy Culture: Middle-Class Boyhood in Nineteenth-Century America”, historian E. Anthony Rotundo explores a “free nation” of boys, a cultural world with its own rituals and values (hierarchic, violent etc.). This “free nation” is subject to its own boundaries, is located outside the domestic world of women, and is free of adult intervention. The boy as a gentle savage features as a central character in “boyology”, which in Kenneth B. Kidd’s Making American Boys (2004), is described as a discourse comprising descriptive and prescriptive writing on boyhood across a variety of genres. The “boyologists” of the early twentieth century reworked themes and tropes they picked up from the “American Boy” novel (Aldrich, Twain etc.). Foremost, these writers explored the idea of the wilderness of boys, a temporarily primitive period, as a necessary step in becoming a man. This is also an idea that pervades Mälarpirater, in which the different events that occur during the boy’s adventure are described as essential in Georg’s development towards manhood. Simultaneously, this idea collides with Siwertz’s Bergsonian discourse, resulting in a division of the gentle savage into one, more well-behaved, individual (Georg) and one more wild individual (Fabian). The rascal Fabian is regarded as a necessary stepping stone for Georg on his way to manliness; Fabian introduces him to boy culture and educates him, and after this “work” is done and Georg has beaten him up, he disappears. In explanation of this division Siwertz describes Fabian as a typical representative of the lower class, while Georg comes from a middle class home, to which he returns in the end. 222222222222222222222222222222222222

John Sayles's Honeydripper: African Americans and the Environment

The first image of Honeydripper, the sixteenth film written, directed, and produced by John Sayles (in collaboration with Maggie Renzi), is a close-up of hands (accompanied by the sound of a diddly-bo). The camera pulls back to reveal an African American boy, six or seven years old, bobbing back and forth and mouthing along to the sounds he creates on his homemade “guitar,” a wire picked with a glass bottle. We then see a close-up of another pair of hands playing a board painted with piano keys. The “pianist,” Lonnie, another African American boy, looks disapprovingly at the “guitarist,” Scratch, whose instrument, unlike Lonnie's, is actually making sound. The camera pulls back further to reveal the boys sitting on a simple wooden porch with no railing, a couple of tables, and a threadbare chair. The boys’ overalls are well worn. The scene is bathed with golden late evening sunlight. As the opening sequence continues, the boys leave their porch, and the camera follows them through cotton fields, past an army base, through the woods, across a lazy stream, and into a clearing where they climb the steps to a roadhouse, the Honeydripper Lounge. The final prompt from the credits indicates the setting is “Alabama 1950.”

Psychodynamic Play Therapy With a Six-Year-Old African American Boy Diagnosed With ADHD

This article describes the effective, two-year psychodynamic treatment of Jaden, an African American boy diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Combined Type. Treatment began when Jaden was six years old and is currently in its second year. Play provided an understanding of his internal world and a holding environment (Winnicott, 1960) to contain and reflect Jaden's impulses and behavioral dyscontrol. Clinical material, which centers on character play, is presented to illustrate the evolution of Jaden's understanding of his diagnosis and his struggle to manage feelings of intense sibling rivalry, anger, envy, and frustration. Further, the transference-countertransference relationship was utilized in the clinical work and informed by a relational, integrative psychodynamic-systems perspective (Altman et al., 2002). This approach included ongoing collaboration with Jaden's family and his school, and the use of standardized psychological assessment. This integrative psychodynamic-systemic approach decreased Jaden's behavioral dyscontrol, aggression, and distractibility. These techniques fostered a realistic and more positive self-representation, enhanced his emotion and impulse regulation, and helped him improve his school performance. The implications for expanding treatment options and theoretical perspectives for ADHD are discussed.