ABSTRACT
Supporters of the remaking of junior high schools into middle schools have argued that young adolescents have special needs that differently organized schools must address. The middle school movement has claimed to understand the special needs of 10-to IS-year-olds and has offered curricula and programs to help this special age group succeed. In this chapter I explore the definitions of the needs of young adolescents
92 I Act Your Age! and administrative responses. Thus this chapter follows up on the latter part of Chapter Two in examining how administrative practices make youth in concrete ways. A second aim of this chapter is to demonstrat,e the hardiness of Progressive Era youth practices, which are regularly lreinvented and heralded as "new." Finally, I describe the n:gulation and normalization that occur through schooling practices that rhetorically connect with freedom and democracy.
