Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal about Generation Z’s New Path to Success

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. (Apr.)