This is a report of a study that examined the social and academic climates of two American law schools, concluding that the environment in which legal education takes place is not conducive to significant socialization. The diminution after 7 months of law school of the expectations of first-year students to work as professionals after graduation in attaining justice and establishing social reforms was due largely to rational cognitive processes, inasmuch as there were no significant changes in basic motives and attitudes. The study supports adult socialization theory that holds that adult individual rationality is a powerful inhibitor of attempts to bring about fundamental affective changes.
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