The Privileged Adolescent: An outline of the physical and mental problems of the student society PDF
Preview The Privileged Adolescent: An outline of the physical and mental problems of the student society
THE PRIVILEGED ADOLESCENT A. D. G. GUNN M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., M.R.C.G.P., D.Obst.R.C.O.G., D.P.H. THE PRIVILEGED ADOLE§CENT An outline of the physical and mental problems of the student society MTP Medical and Technical Publishing Co Ltd Chiltern House, Aylesbury PUBLISHED BY MTP, MEDICAL AND TECHNICAL PUBLISHING CO. LTD. CHILTERN HOUSE, OXFORD ROAD, AYLESBURY, BUCKS. COPYRIGHT 1970 BY DR. A. D. G. GUNN Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st editin 1970 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages for the purpose of review SBN 85200 005 7 FIRST PUBLISHED 1970 ISBN-13: 978-94-011-6114-5 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-011-6112-1 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-011-6112-1 Contents CHAPTER I THE NUMBERS 9 2 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ADOLESCENT 17 3 SEX ON THE CAMPUS 30 4 DISEASES AND HEALTH PROBLEMS OF THE ADOLESCENT STUDENT 5 ANXIETY AND STRESS 6 DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE 7 SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF THE FOREIGN STUDENT 93 8 REVOLT OF THE PRIVILEGED 102 9 THE DRUG SCENE II3 10 STUDENT WASTAGE 127 APPENDIX TRAVELLERS' NOTES 139 INDEX ISS Foreword ADOLESCENCE is an artificial state, created by the demands of complex modem society for further education. Youth is prolonged by the requirements of training, apprenticeship, school, college and university, and those who are better intellectually endowed than others face a time of further education that may last from at least three to six years after leaving school. As such they are privileged by the opportunities they can enjoy-and the student who belongs to the educational elite of today can belong to the social elite of tomorrow's world. These privileged adolescents, however, have much need of un derstanding, sympathy, and help through the crises ofd evelop ment, be they social, psychological or environmental in cause-because the student of today is the most precious investment for the community' sfuture. Whether it be problems of academic wastage, stress, depression, adjustment to personal relationships or the demands of just simply growing up, the privileged adolescent has a difficult time in contemporary society. If we, as parents, doctors, teachers, taxpayers and adults are responsible for making it any more difficult than it ought to be, by prejudice, lack of understanding or through not offering the right help at the right time, then we bear a terrible responsibility. Society will suffer for the harm it causes its adolescents and there are many who feel, perhaps justifiably, that addiction, promiscuity, suicide, depression and neurosis are symptoms of 'social illness' marked out by individual tragedy.If this book helps anyone to understand better the problems faced by the privileged adolescent, then it will have achieved its purpose and perhaps in some way helped to 8 THE PRIVILEGED ADOLESCENT prevent, somewhere, the ignorance and prejudice that leads to conflict. The generation gap is not that of time, social change or modern fashion, it is that of communication. ALEXANDER D. G. GUNN Reading, Berkshire April 1970 CHAPTER ONE The Numbers 'Higher education (academic, professional, technological and artistic) is provided in institutions such as universities and colleges for which (a) the basic requirement is completion of secondary education, (b) the usual entrance age is 18 and (c) the course leads to the giving of a named award.' - definition by UNESCO World Survey of Education THROUGHOUT the world there are more than 50,000,000 young people between the ages of 17 and 21 pursuing tertiary education. They are the new champions in their society, perhaps at times vociferous in their discontent, and looked upon with ambivalent feelings of anxiety or envy by their elders, but certainly they represent a most precious investment for they are the privileged twentieth-century 'apprentices' who will become the managers, administrators, professionals and teachers of the future. They are the new class of the 'class less society' for they are educationally and intellectually the elite. Universally, the pattern of tertiary education is changing dramatically in response to the needs of a society that is becoming evermore sophisticated technologically. In the United Kingdom, in the past forty years the number of full universities has trebled. Whereas before the 1914-18 war under 1 per cent of young people attended a university, nowadays the proportion is nearer 7 per cent and within the next decade this will rise to 10 per cent. In the United States, 9 10 THE PRIVILEGED ADOLESCENT 45·6 per cent of males aged 18-19 and 29·2 per cent of females of the same age have remained at school undergoing formal education with a view to acceptance into higher institutions of learning, but the adolescents of lower socio-economic status 'drop out' as they marry, get jobs or enter the armed forces. In Europe it is clear that the number of students enrolled for higher education has increased considerably and annually since the end of World War II. Moreover, since 1945, 1,200 million people have radically changed their form of government and 800 million have achieved political independence. They are demanding opportunities for higher education and their governments are requiring more and more highly qualified personnel to fill new positions in their society. There has been an international rise in the birth rate and-of more impact still-a greater degree of survival of the child to adolescence and adulthood due to the advances of medicine and environmental control. The result is that, for the world as a whole, between 1930 and 1960 the number of students trebled. In Europe the greatest increases have been in Turkey, Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Germany and the USSR the latter having an average increment of 15 per cent per year in the number ofs tudents undertaking formal tertiary university or technological education. In almost every country of the world, therefore, greater numbers of young adolescents are having their education prolonged. In terms of productivity and contribution to the economy of their country they are, during this period of their lives, making a negative contribution. They need supporting, fmancing and supplying with all the facilities necessary (from capital expenditure on buildings to maintenance services and academic staffmg). Prolonged education is not cheap. The needs, too, of further and further extension by post-graduate education creates a group in the community who will not be in employment until the age of 24-25. They are fully-grown mature adults, often married with families, who have not made any obvious material contributions to society until after a THE NUMBERS II third of their life-span has expired_ Every country, however, has to make this investment and undertake the responsibility of creating this privilege for those who have shown themselves capable of benefiting, because in the long run, in the course of decades rather than years, it is an investment which no nation can afford to overlook_ The tremendous increase in the number of those undergoing higher education is, moreover, not merely a question of natural population increase, but a genuine increase in the proportion_ In the USSR per 100,000 of the population at all ages, 1,041 are students; in the USA, 970; in the Netherlands, 769; Poland, 571; Czechoslovakia, 563; and all the other European countries have rates above 400- The older universi ties of Europe and America are also undertaking the education of more students from the developing countries of other continents as greater degrees of international co-operation are brought about by such organisations as UNESCO, the World Health Organisation and Fellowship and Scholarship Founda tions_ Host country Percentage of'Joreign' students to 'native' student population Switzerland 32-3 Austria 25-0 USSR 24-0 USA 23-4 Ireland 22-8 France II-I United Kingdom 10-0 Federal Republic of Germany Whilst any rate of growth in the number of students under taking tertiary education is related inevitably to the birth rate some two decades earlier, nevertheless by far the most import ant influence in determining the number of applications for I2 THE PRIVILEGED ADOLESCENT Wliversltles and for other types of higher education is the number of people who achieve the minimum academic quali fication for admission. This number, both absolutely and as a proportion oft he age-group I 7-23, has steadily risen through out the developed nations. In I953 there were 80,602 students in British Wliversities, by I959 the number was I04,009. Ten years later it had increased to 2I2,000, and as we enter the seventies the number has risen to over a quarter of a million. Thus in the fifties the Wliversities grew by about a quarter in terms of student numbers, whilst in the sixties they doubled. This huge increase probably represents the results of the developing methods of primary and secondary education particularly in societies where all education up to the age of I6 is free. Thus we have increases in the total number, increases in the proportion of the population, and increases in the numbers of overseas-originating adolescents who are Wldertaking further education. It is not surprising, therefore, that because of this the 'student' in modern society is more prominent, more noticed and receives an ever-increasing proportion of attention from the commWlity and its media of commWlication. They are still a minority group but there are more of them. More families have one, or know one, than in any previous genera tion. This inevitably affects the attitude oft he older generation, who expect the student still to be somewhat special, excep tionally gifted, and of a far superior talent to themselves - judgements based on their own experience of life. The seeds of conflict are sown by rapid changes in society - and by changes of the very sort that are being seen in the pattern of extended education for the yOWlg. Tertiary education has altered in a far wider context in the last two decades than just in terms of numbers. In the United Kingdom, for example, the colleges of education, which provide the major source of teachers for the cOWltry, have quadrupled their intake. Technical colleges have over 70,000 full-time students, and part-time further education in terms of
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