Mazzarella, Sharon R., & Pecora, Norma Odom . Growing Up Girls: Popular Culture and the Construction of Identity

Adolescence, Summer, 2005

MAZZARELLA, Sharon R., & PECORA, Norma Odom (Eds.). Growing Up Girls: Popular Culture and the Construction of Identity. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1999. 240pp. $29.95 (p).

More and more mass media and popular culture is being produced for, about, and by pre-adolescent and adolescent girls than ever before. The intent of this book is to help us better understand the complex relationship between girls and their culture. Informed by a broad range of theoretical perspectives and employing a variety of methodologies, the essays in this collection address the ways mainstream culture "instructs" girls on how to become a woman--the ways in which the culture approves of "growing up girls." Specifically, these essays examine the messages mainstream culture gives girls about romance, sexuality, life experiences, body image, gender and culture identity, and the way girls themselves negotiate these messages.