Urban Students, Liminality, and the Postindustrial Context

The effects of deindustrialization and the shift to a postindustrial society have contributed to an evolution in the organization and operation of cities. This qualitative case study explored urban working-class high school students' perceptions of school, work, and the future within this changing context; their inability or hesitancy to construct their futures; the lack of a peer-group hierarchy; and the mainly positive racial and ethnic relations in the school. Liminality, an anthropological and sociological construct, appeared to capture some of the complexities and contradictions of these macroeconomic and social changes and to explain some of the daily realities of urban students.