Understanding Teenage Girls: Culture, Identity and Schooling focuses on a range of social phenomenon that impact the lives of adolescent females of color. The authors highlight the daily challenges that African-American, Chicana, and Puerto Rican teenage girls face with respect to peer and family influences, media stereotyping, body image, community violence, pregnancy, and education. The authors also emphasize the incredible resiliency that young women possess in countering many of the social barriers confronting them.

This work attempts to communicate the often hushed voices of girls of color, for the purpose of understanding their views on life experiences and how they negotiate social and cultural mores. In company with their perspectives are the authors' analyses guided by their years of teaching and mentoring experiences, as well as contemporary research literature from the fields of education, counseling, psychology, nursing, and anthropology. Practical strategies are also offered for those professionals assisting adolescent girls of color in and outside of schools.