Sp’ange: 1 A Research Story

Abstract

The authors use a storied representation to highlight the aesthetic and feeling qualities of their research about homeless youth. The authors also include a description of their mother/son research collaboration and the impact of that relationship on the research process. Names of youth are pseudonyms or street names, and all dialogues and reflections with participants were taken from audiotaped conversations. The following several themes are developed in this research story: the formation by homeless youth of familylike structures, the use of cocaine and heroin, early use of alcohol and primacy of alcohol as the drug of choice, and attitudes toward government, economic structures, and work. The problem of youth homelessness reflects the shortcomings of national youth policy and the failures of practices that concern youth. It is the authors' purpose to provide an opportunity for homeless youth to tell their stories and to contribute their own voices to conversations among educators and policy makers who make decisions that influence the life histories of youth, homeless or otherwise. THE RESEARCHERSThe telephone rang shortly after midnight. My 19-year-old son was calling collect, "Hi, Mom?" I could hear breathless excitement in his voice; excitement, not fear, or anger, no hint of trouble, just excitement. Why was he calling collect? When was he due home?"Mack, where are you?" I asked, a sense of foreboding creeping over me as I awakened."I'm in New Orleans!" was his joyous reply. Macklin was always a very good student in school, but he also always loved to challenge the system, to stay just this side of respectable (maybe sometimes he crossed over the line). A good kid, and always a challenge, his successes were plenty. As a ninth grader, he interviewed Bill Clinton and his aides George Stephanopoulous and James Carville for the school paper. A readers theater Mack wrote for his junior year project was presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA)-he had interviewed each, Holocaust survivors and high school students; 313

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Predictors of Transience Among Homeless Emerging Adults

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Street Rat: An Ethnodrama

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