For to change the norms, the very foci of attention, of a cultural system is a difficult task - far more complex than that of changing an individual's attitudes and interests.
Children from a given family background, when put in schools of different social compositions, will achieve at quite different levels.
The educational resources provided by a child's fellow students are more important for his achievement than are the resources provided by the school board.
It is one thing to take as a given that approximately 70 percent of an entering high school freshman class will not attend college, but to assign a particular child to a curriculum designed for that 70 percent closes off for that child the opportunity to attend college.
If we refuse to accept as inevitable the irresponsibility and educational unconcern of the adolescent culture, then this poses a serious challenge.
It is clear from all these data that the interests of teenagers are not focused around studies, and that scholastic achievement is at most of minor importance in giving status or prestige to an adolescent in the eyes of other adolescents.
The higher the social class of other students the higher any given student's achievement.
The present structure of rewards in high schools produces a response on the part of an adolescent social system which effectively impedes the process of education.
