ABSTRACT

Noted scholar Lois Weis first visited the town of "Freeway" in her 1990 book, Working Class Without Work. In that book we met the students and teachers of Freeway's high school to understand how these working-class folks made sense of their lives. Now, fifteen years later, Weis has gone back to Freeway for Class Reunion. This time her focus is on the now grown-up students who are, for the most part, still working class and now struggling to survive the challenges of the global economy.

Class Reunion is a rare and valuable longitudinal ethnographic study that provides powerful, provocative insight into how the lives of these men and women have changed over the last two decades--and what their prospects might be for the future.

chapter |20 pages

INTRODUCTION

part |2 pages

Part I 1985

chapter 1|24 pages

A Time of Pain: Young Men at Freeway High

chapter 2|20 pages

A TIME OF POSSIBILITY

part |2 pages

Part II 2000

chapter 3|14 pages

WE MEET THE MEN AGAIN

chapter 4|24 pages

And the Beat Goes On: Those Men Who Stay

chapter 5|28 pages

REVISITING A “MOMENT OF CRITIQUE”

chapter 6|24 pages

PICKING UP THE PIECES AND MOVING FORWARD

chapter 7|12 pages

BEYOND THE SHADOW OF THE MILLS