ABSTRACT
The adolescent experiences of Alice Walker are characteristic of one aspect of socialization into the Pruitt-Igoe world. All of the negative potentialities of the Pruitt-Igoe world and most of the strategies by which one seeks to contain them are familiar to the young adult. Young teenagers often give the impression of diving into the adolescent scene with a great deal of enthusiasm and attentiveness. The peer groups of adolescent boys and girls in Pruitt-Igoe are loose, and the membership of cliques is constantly shifting. The school is the centre for the peer group at its widest extension. The principal activity of the peer group relationship of both boys and girls is talk. Talk goes on primarily within groups of the same sex but also in augmented mixed groups. As boys and girls become participants in the adolescent peer group and visible to adults as sexually mature, their expectations and experiences encourage sexual activity 'for real' as opposed to childish play.
