Abstract

The Teen-Age Aristocracy

The article presents information on adolescent attitudes and middle-class child rearing practices in the U.S. The present century has been remarkable for the expansion of the, middle class in the developed countries of the West. Although established, traditional professions like law and medicine have not expanded much faster than the general population, new professions have proliferated. The affluent society makes a clean, congenial and healthy life style available to a growing proportion of the adult population; accordingly, it condemns an ever-growing number of children to the rigorous demands, restrictions, expectations and deprivations of a middle-class upbringing. The role of the student is narrow and constricted, orderly and even servile behavior, deference to authority.