Allison Davis

A Comparison of the Chicago and Harvard Studies of Social Class Differences in Child Rearing

knowledge about procedures and means, acquaintance with the latent social structure, professional and technical skills, access to the leadership structure, time, money, and even energy. These same skills and capacities are also the ones most often associated with the roles of those in the upper social and economic levels. Participation is less likely to be congenial to a person whose education did not go beyond the ninth grade and who holds an unskilled job in a factory than another who has a broader educational background and is engaged in managerial activities.

Caste, Economy, and Violence

Caste in the Deep South integrates into one system all aspects of white-Negro behavior: social, sexual, economic, political, educational, religious, legal, associational, and recreational. The only institution which is not completely organized on caste lines is the economic. Whenever Negroes as a group achieve economic mobility, they meet with severe punishment from the whites. Thus conflict and violence indicate that Negroes are beginning to compete more effectively with whites.

Child Socialization and the School

EDUCATORS AND OTHER STUDENTS of human development increasingly are viewing human learning as a function of the total biological and social history of the learner. It seems clear also that all new learning involves the changing of previously learned behavior. Since social behavior is learned, these principles indicate that what the child learns in his school culture is influenced by what he learns in his social life outside of school and what he has learned before he entered school.

Personality and Social Mobility

There is a growing feeling in America that the competition for professional status is becoming more severe and that our status system generally is tightening. Perhaps this belief contributes to the pressure for acceleration by our schools. Middle-class parents, moreover, are increasingly fearful that their children will not qualify for admission to a good college. These parents, as well as many teachers and administrators, exert strong pressure upon the child from the time he is in elementary school. The tension builds up until the months preceding the announcement by colleges of their decisions upon applications; at that time even the best students often are in a nearly frenetic condition.

Black Leadership and Anger.

Leaders can be classified according to their methods of handling their anger. A leaders handling of his own anger is important to society because the follower takes the leader as his model. The follower yields up his conscience and ideals to the leader and, in a state of hero worship or hero love, admires whatever the leader does. Thus, followers of Hitler and Stalin could abandon their moral restrictions on violence and