With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture

by Gary Alan Fine

What are boys like? Who is the creature inhabiting the twilight zone between the perils of the Oedipus complex and the Strum und Drang of puberty? In With the Boys, Gary Alan Fine examines the American male preadolescent by studying the world of Little League baseball. Drawings on three years of firsthand observation of five Little Leagues, Fine describes how, through organized sport and its accompanying activities, boys learn to play, work, and generally be "men."

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1987

About the author

Gary Alan Fine is Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. He is the author of Morel Tales: The Culture of Mushrooming, Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work, and With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture.

Reviews

[Briana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting story of a study done with little league and anecdotal notes made by a scientist observer. Draws some strong conclusions that make sense, but feels like reading a research paper more than anything else.

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

microsociology at its best... I'm not sure if arguing that male socialization is "normal" is any better than saying it's abnormal... but he'd tell us it wasn't meant to be a book on gender anyway...

[Mackenzie Orlosky]

For SOC 316, but was interesting. How LL can be looked at as subculture to show something about society as a whole.