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stimulation of age-peers. The question is whether this regressive behavionr
comes to be confirmed into a major pattern for the personality as a whole.
Seen in this perspective, it seems legitimate to maintain that the middle
and the higher patterns indicated are the major ones, and that only a
minority of adolescents comes to be confirmed in a truly unacceptable
pattern of living. This minority may well be a relatively constant proportion
of the age cohort, but apart from situations of special social disorganization,
the available evidence does not suggest that it has been a progressively grow-
ing one in recent years
he patterning of cross-sex relations in the youth culture clearly fore-
shadows future marriage and family formation. That it figures so promi-
nently in school is related to the fact that in our society the element of
ascription, including direct parental influence, in the choice of a marriage
partner is strongly minimized. For the girl, t has the very important signif-
cance of reminding her that her adult status is going to be very much con-
cerned with marriage and a family. This basic expectation for the girl
stands in a certain tension to the school's curricular coeducation with its
relative lack of differentiation by sex. But the extent to which the feminine
role in American society continues to be anchored in marriage and the
family should not be allowed to obscure the importance of coeducation. In
the first place, the contribution of women in various extra-familial occupa-
tions and in community affairs has been rapidly increasing, and certainly
higher levels of eduation have served as a prerequisite to this contribu
tion. At the same time, it is highly important that the woman's familial
role should not be regarded as drastically segregated from the cultural
concerns of the society as a whole. The educated woman has important
functions as wife and mother, particularly as an influence on her children in
backing the schools and impressing on them the importance of education. It
is, I think, broadly true that the immediate responsibility of women for
family management has been increasing, though I am very skeptical of the
alleged abdication" of the American male. But precisely in the context of
women's increased family responsibility, the influence of the mother both
as agent of socialization and as role model is a crucial one. This influence
should be evaluated in the light of the general upgrading process. It is very
doubtful whether, apart from any other considerations, the motivational
prerequisites of the general process could be sustained without sufficiently
high education of the women who, as mothers, influence their children.
CONCLUSION
With the general cultural upgrading process in American society which
has been going on for more than a century, the educational system has come
to play an increasingly vital role. That this should be the case is, in my
318
Harvard Educational Rev
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opinion, a consequence of the general trend to structural differentiation in
the society. Relatively speaking, the school is a specialized agency. That i
should increasingly have become the principal channel of selection as well
as agency of socialization is in line with what one would expect in an
creasingly differentiated and progressively more upgraded society. The
legend of the "self-made man" has an element of nostalgic romanticism
is destined to become increasingly mythical, if by it is meant not just mobili
from humble origins to high status, which does indeed continue to occur, but
that the high status was attained through the "school of hard knocks" with
out the aid of formal education
ty
The structure of the public school system and the analysis of the ways in
which it contributes both to the socialization of individuals and to their
allocation to roles in society is, I feel, of vital concern to all students of
American society. Notwithstanding the variegated elements in the situation,
I think it has been possible to sketch out a few major structural patterns of
the public school system and at least to suggest some ways in which they
serve these important functions. What could be presented in this paper is the
merest outline of such an analysis. It is, however, hoped that it has been
carried far enough to suggest a field of vital mutual interest for social
scientists on the one hand and those concerned with the actual operation of
the schools on the other
posted by yoji at 8:27 午前
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