"Learning Capitalist Culture poses excellent questions and offers provocative theoretical possibilities."—American Journal of Sociology

Learning Capitalist Culture
Deep in the Heart of Tejas

Douglas E. Foley

272 pages | 6 x 9
Paper 1990 | ISBN 978-0-8122-1314-0 | $24.95s | £16.50 | Add to shopping cart
A volume in the Contemporary Ethnography series

Learning Capitalist Culture presents an ethnographic study of a small, economically-depressed, predominantly Mexican American south Texas town. Like many communities in the Southwest, North Town has undergone cultural and political change since the late sixties, when the Chicano civil rights movement emerged and challenged the segregated racial order.

This book examines the way in which the youth of North Town learn traditional American values through participation in sports, membership in formal and informal social groups, dating, and interactions with teachers in the classroom. Using information gathered over fourteen years of field work, Douglas E. Foley shows how the rituals involved in these activities tend to preserve or reproduce class and gender inequalities, even as Mexicanos transform the racial order.

"A fascinating study of the clash between Anglo and Hispanic cultures in South Texas as seen through the eyes of its youth."—Choice

"Learning Capitalist Culture poses excellent questions and offers provocative theoretical possibilities."—American Journal of Sociology

Douglas E. Foley is Associate Professor of Anthropology and of Education at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of From Peones to Politicos: Class and Ethnicity in a South Texas Town, 1900-1987, and The Heartland Chronicles, which is also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

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