ABSTRACT
Peer group influence becomes important in the life of young people as soon as they enter school. In a typical developmental progression, the young person becomes steadily more responsive to age mates and correspondingly less responsive to adults as he or she moves through childhood and enters adolescence. Parsons has pointed up the classic inconsistency of adolescents: at the same time that they compulsively oppose adult expecta tions and authority, they just as compulsively conform to their group code. Money to provide security for children and employees attending schools in districts with high crime rates will pay for the locks, fences, and alarm systems to separate the reader further from those who desperately need our services. A few adults decide to join the opposition, "going native," so to speak. The increasing sophistication of the human service professions has given rise to a myth that only those with high degrees of training can be effective in teaching or treatment.
