NCJ Number
148998
Date Published
1975
Length
403 pages
Annotation
This second edition presents updated information on a sociological research project centered in a Midwestern community in the 1940's; new data were gathered in the early 1970's.
Abstract
The research focused on the ways that the social system organized and controlled the behavior of high school students in the town. Longitudinal data were collected on 735 adolescents who lived in the community and the social positions occupied by their families. The eight major areas of culture examined here included family, school, church, job, recreation, cliques, dates, and sexual behavior. This book examines the problem on which the research was focused and describes in detail where, when, and how the data were obtained. The next section describes the communal, family, and social setting of the study, followed by explorations of the social behaviors of 390 high school students and 345 dropouts. The author concludes that, despite the fact that the population of this town was homogeneously stable, white, and native-born, there was a surprising degree of variability in the behavior of adolescents living there. The primary factor contributing to this variance was identified as the parents' social status; the relationship between class position and behavior is seen as a product of learning by participants in social situations. Chapter references