Seven Going on Seventeen

The Editors: Claudia Mitchell is a James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. She is the co-author and co-editor of a number of books including That’s funny you don’t look like a teacher: Interrogating Images of Identity in Popular Culture (with S. Weber, 1995); Reinventing Ourselves as Teachers: Beyond Nostalgia (with S. Weber, 1999); Researching Children’s Popular Culture: The Cultural Spaces of Childhood (2002); Just Who Do We Think We Are? Methodologies for Autobiography and Self-Study in Teaching (with S. Weber and K. O’Reilly-Scanlon, 2005).Jacqueline Reid-Walsh received her Ph.D. from McGill University in the Department of English specializing in children’s literature and in women writers of the late eighteenth century. She teaches at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada. She is co-author with Claudia Mitchell of Researching Children’s Popular Culture: The Cultural Spaces of Childhood (2002).

• Contents: Claudia Mitchell/Jacqueline Reid-Walsh: Theorizing Tween Culture Within Girlhood Studies – Elizabeth Seaton: Tween Social and Biological Reproduction: Early Puberty in Girls – Marnina Gonick: From Nerd to Popular? Re-figuring School Identities and Transformation Stories – Kristina Hackmann: Video Girls: Between Changing Exploratory Behavior and Self-authorization – Kathleen O’Reilly-Scanlon/Sonya Corbin Dwyer: Memory-work as a (be)Tween Research Method: The Beauty, the Splendor, the Wonder of My Hair – Meredith Cherland: Reading Elisabeth’s Girlhood: History and Popular Culture at Work in the Subjectivity of a Tween – Marika Flockemann: Mirrors and Windows: Re-reading South African Girlhoods as Strategies of Selfhood – Balkishori Team of VACHA Women’s Resource Center with Jackie Kirk: Reclaiming Girlhood: Understanding the Lives of Balkishori in Mumbai – Relebohile Moletsane: «I do know who I am»: Writing, Consciousness and Reflection – Deevia Bhana: «Show Me the Panties»: Girls Play Games in the School Ground – Yasmin Jiwani: Tween Worlds: Race, Gender, Age, Identity, and Violence – Shannon Walsh: «Losers, Lolitas, and Lesbos»: Visualizing Girlhood – Anita Harris: In a Girlie World: Tweenies in Australia – Catherine Driscoll: Girl-Doll: Barbie as Puberty Manual – Amy T.Y. Lai: Consuming Hello Kitty: Tween Icon, Sexy Cute, and the Changing Meaning of ‘Girlhood’ – Farah Malik: Mediated Consumption and Fashionable Selves: Tween Girls, Fashion Magazines, and Shopping – Rebekah Willett: Constructing the Digital Tween: Market Discourse and Girls’ Interests – Hoi F. Cheu: Imported Girl Fighters: Ripeness and Leakage in Sailor Moon – Peggy Tally: Re-imagining Girlhood: Hollywood and the Tween Girl Film Market – Natalie Coulter: The Consumption Chronicles: Tales from Suburban Canadian Tweens in the 1980s.

«Just when we thought everything had been written about tween girls, Mitchell and Reid-Walsh prove us wrong with a stunning collection brimming with accessible and original interpretations of early puberty, popularity, hair, girls’ magazines, Hello Kitty, and more. Not all is pink and perky in the globalized network of tween markets and discourses according to the international contributors. The chapters also offer a useful range of methodological approaches to studying and analyzing tween girls.» (Nancy Lesko, Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University)