By the middle of the nineteenth century American society was becoming restructured according to the concept of career. A new middle class emerged, and within it professionalism became the highest goal. The creation of the university in America provided the necessary matrix for its development, making possible new attitudes about authority,…

In the recent social revolution, rebellious middle-class youth attacked and rejected, among other values, the American middle-class belief in the worthwhileness of work. Although this recent humanistic revolt hardly affected the patterns of working life in America, it influenced attitudes toward work not only among middle-class adolescents and…

Lower-class black street corner behavior is present in the inner city and in nonschool settings. This language and behavior is misunderstood by middle-class whites, especially teachers, to the point that effective communications are seriously hampered in urban schools. Efforts to educate minority students will fail significantly until teachers and…

Based on 3,522 one- to two-hour personal interviews conducted in 1973, this study compares the 1973 views and attitudes of American youth to a survey conducted in the late 1960's. As a result, significant trends are traced through an era filled with events that deeply affected the lives of young people, such as the peak and ending of the Vietnam…

Despite a myriad of school reform efforts, inner-city schools, attended for the most part by poor and working-class Black and Latino children, are failing to prepare students for our highly complex and changing world. This book suggests that reform efforts have failed because they focused upon school-based solutions and paid scant attention to the…

When the first black colleges were founded more than a century ago they filled an important need for youth who were denied access to all but a few white institutions. Today these same private colleges must compete with more affluent, prestigious white colleges and universities for funding and for black students and teachers. They are losing in…