The High School as a Focus of "Student Unrest"

Abstract

Although the example of protest among college students has doubtless brought the possibility of protest to the attention of high school pupils who would otherwise have continued to accept their restricted status passively, neither the issues, the form, nor the prospects of rebellion in the high school are truly homologous to apparently corresponding factors in college protests. High school students are truly captive; they cannot lawfully withdraw, and they have virtu ally no avenue of lawful protest available. The courts have failed to sustain the rights of high school students even to determine their own dress. Yet the courts remain the only channel open to persons as vulnerable to arrest and restraint as juveniles.

In spontaneous, active revolt within the high school, lower- class resentment is more often a significant factor than in col lege, where students of lower-class origins are more likely than their middle-class peers to be made conservative by the sense of ambition fulfilled. The high school administrator has little room and usually little inclination for maneuver, while the issues with which students confront him are closer to their daily lives and more rankling than those that usually arouse college students, and the forces of repression at his command are far heavier. Student protest in high schools is therefore likely to increase greatly in scope, frequency, and violence in the near future.