Beeline
What Spelling Bees Reveal About Generation Z's New Path to Success
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
An anthropologist uses spelling bees as a lens to examine the unique and diverse traits of Generation Z--and why they are destined for success
At first glance, Generation Z (youth born after 1997) seems to be made up of anxious overachievers, hounded by Tiger Moms and constantly tracked on social media. One would think that competitors in the National Spelling Bee -- the most popular brain sport in America -- would be the worst off. Counterintuitively, anthropologist Shalini Shankar argues that, far from being simply overstressed and overscheduled, Gen Z spelling bee competitors are learning crucial twenty-first-century skills from their high-powered lives, displaying a sophisticated understanding of self-promotion, self-direction, and social mobility. Drawing on original ethnographic research, including interviews with participants, judges, and parents, Shankar examines the outsize impact of immigrant parents and explains why Gen Z kids are on a path to success.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this compassionate ethnography, Shankar, a professor of anthropology and Asian-American studies, argues that the poised, proficient young spellers who participate in the National Spelling Bee should be seen as a bellwether for their "camera-ready, organized, driven, and goal-oriented" generation, members of which understand the importance of developing "human capital" early in life. She gives plenty of space to the culture of the bee, detailing its development from a traditional schoolroom competition into a televised media phenomenon in which "spellebrities" dazzle viewers with their personalities and skills. She also focuses on the Indian-American communities that have produced many recent bee champions, noting the impact of non-U.S. cultural influences and immigrant experience on American culture at large a much-needed corrective, she argues, to generation models that present white, middle-class norms as universal. But her generational depictions tend toward broad archetypes (hedonistic, helicopter-parent baby boomers; Generation X parents skeptical of the "American dream") and she does not provide rigorous, explicit support for her claims that the culture of intense preparation surrounding the bee is merely one example of an endemic "professionalization of childhood." This account is more successful as a deep dive into bee culture and immigrant experience than as an argument about what constitutes a typical Gen Z experience or child, but it makes for engaging reading nonetheless.