Doctoral Dissertation Research: Parallel Economies of Youth Socialization in a Chicago Neighborhood

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Graduate student Lawrence Ralph, supervised by Dr. John L. Comaroff, will undertake twelve months of research on youth socialization into or away from crime in a Chicago neighborhood. The focus will be on the parallel economies of rap discourse as observed in two different music production companies, one abetting gang participation and the other inspiring youth to avoid an illegal lifestyle. The researcher will use participant observation field methods, including community residence, interviews, discourse analysis, and computer-assisted text analysis techniques.The research is important because it will contribute to social science understanding of the material effects of cultural representations, by exploring the relations between representational forms and social practice. It will help to design better social policy for inner city youth. It also will contribute to the education of a social scientist from an underrepresented group.