ABSTRACT
Children of the educated elite are taller, heavier, healthier, and begin schooling earlier and with more skills than the products of illiterate or traditional Yoruba homes. These are the results of superior housing, diet, medical care—in fact, of privilege. Of interest in this analysis are the social and psychological aspects of home and family life which set these children apart from their peers and which make the Nigerian situation unusual. To the young child in an elite home, going to school is often seen as a privilege to be won, especially where both parents and older siblings leave home together each morning. Membership in the elite is determined primarily by education. Entry into the governmental and educational bureaucracies, in which the majority of educated people find employment, is relatively open to those with the essential academic qualifications. A cultivated feeling of classlessness may indeed be necessary to ensure government stability in the situation of marked contrasts in wealth and privilege.
