ABSTRACT
In 1955, the Jamaican anthropologist M.G. Smith sampled opinion among 2,050 rural Jamaicans youths between the ages of ten and 15. 1 He discovered that only three percent wished to be farmers while 23.8 percent wished to be professionals (11.3 percent of these, doctors), and 31.1 percent desired high-skill occupations. Smith noted that since such occupations could be secured in such numbers only in urban Jamaica and abroad, there existed a lamentable gap between reality and desire. He postulated that this revealed a potentially high degree of anomie. Smith placed the blame on the educational system, which he said presented "a curriculum ... designed for urban populations in industrial countries."
