ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyzes the negative and positive effects of group care for young children. It discusses the several teen-age group environments and their consequences. In the younger age-groups, emphasis has been on issues of separation, mothering, and cognitive development, but the youth settings emphasize their peer effect on values and moral character. The book concerns the possibility of creating a powerful environment that promotes the values desired in the several settings described. It also concerns the compatibility of such a milieu with the values to be imbued. The book emphases the use of relatively non-professionalized, low-key, low-cost settings for the melioration of culturally deprived and emotionally disturbed preadolescents and adolescents. It presents some dreams and proposals that hopefully will affect group care thinking.
