History 1080: Youth culture and institutions at mid-century.  History 1080.  2-24-06.

 

1. Introduction:  youth culture at mid-20th century

A.  Teenagers in the 1930s and 1940s (the term ‘teenager’ = coined in 1941)
B.  Sinatra-mania: the first teen heart-throb  

2.  Mass schooling

A. Growing proportion of adolescents = in school
B. Postwar expansion & consolidation of schools ?

Homogenizing ‘youth’; segregation by age 

C. Debating purpose of school

- Progressive education (John Dewey) – child centred, experiential  
- Hilda Neatby, So Little for the Mind (1953) – classica;, conservative
- School politics, obedience to authority & the Cold War
- reading: Dick and Jane readers (1930-1960s)  

D.  Ideology vs. economic realities



3.  Mass Schooling & Persistence of Inequality

     A.  Schooling in immigrant & aboriginal communities
     B.  Urban education & gang culture (New York City)

       -    spatial transformation of postwar cities
       -    growing up male: school, masculinity & gangs