ABSTRACT
I selected the title of this chapter based on the term used by students at an alternative school in an urban area to describe how they survived within their relationships, school, and neighborhood. The students had been sent to the school because they had been caught on school property with a weapon. The descriptions in this chapter are based on the results of a year’s observations of, and interviews with, students at this alternative school, as well as on research I conducted working with a subgroup of these students who were involved with a pilot literacy project. In that project, which is described in greater detail in chapter 12, students at the alternative school served as literacy tutors for elementary school students. This chapter focuses on how students socially constructed violence and on the roles of violence and drug use in relationships within this school.
