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Learning and Youth Alienation
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13943 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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2 / 1988 |
4,636 Words |
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Edward A. Wynne
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What Do Our Seventeen-Year Olds Know? has been faulted because it lacks a baseline: Thanks to the study, we have a good idea of what today's seventeen-year-olds know about history and literature. It does not tell us what earlier generations of teenagers knew twenty, forty, or one hundred years ago. And so, it is said, we do not know whether things are getting better or worse or staying the same. We actually do know a fair amount about previous levels of youth learning, however, and we know even more about trends in youth behavior that affect the level of youth knowledge about history and literature.
Youth behavior
Current data shows a substantial long-term increase in disorderly conduct by young Americans. Some of these trends are presented in the accompanying graph. Essentially, the graph shows notable increases in the rates of adolescent death by homicide and suicide, and of out-of-wedlock births. The data is based on the white, more advantaged population to emphasize that such shifts are unrelated to racial discrimination or more extreme forms of poverty.
The graph shows that out-of-wedlock births have steadily increased since the first national statistics in 1940. Death rates for males by suicide and homicide also show remarkable patterns of increase, although they have moderated in the recent past. To summarize, between the early 1940s and 1984, rates of white male adolescent death by homicide and suicide increased, respectively, 441 and 479 percent. Between 1940 and 1985, the rates of white adolescent out-of-wedlock births increased 621 percent. At different points in the last decade, all of these rates attained the highest points in recorded history.
Some background increases our appreciation of the data: The increase in out-of-wedlock births occurred during an era when birth control materials, sex education, and abortion were all increasingly available to adolescents. These trends might have led one to forecast a decline in out-of-wedlock births--exactly the reverse of what happened. While these statistics on homicide do not disclose who the murderers are, other research shows that most murders are committed by persons of the same age as the victim. Interpreting the increases in suicide is more complex. We are not in an era in which most adolescents are subject to extraordinary poverty or enormous work or school demands. The typical interpretation would be that the increase in youth suicide--while a terrible tragedy--is also a sign that many young persons lack the determination and self-control typical of earlier generations.
Some scrutiny should also be given to youth drug use. National surveys disclose that in 1969, 21 percent of high school seniors admitted to "ever using" marijuana; the comparable figures for 1980 and 1985 were 60.2 and 54.2 percents. And we can assume that equivalent figures for 1960, if available, would be far lower than 21 percent.
These varied measures of youth disorder and alienation are consistent with the public routinely rating "pupil discipline" as the top public-school problem in the annual Gallup poll on education issues. In the 1987 poll, "pupil discipline" was rated second; the top problem was "pupil drug abuse," surely a component of indiscipline.
In addition, a substantial
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