Date of Award

5-1954

Degree Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

Department

Education

First Advisor

George J. Mouly

Abstract

The adolescent of today finds himself in a moat complex world. It is a world of tension, of embattled ideologies and conflicting moral codes. It is a world in which the adults, who should guide youth, occasionally seem themselves to have lost the way.

It is the responsibility of the school to help prepare the young boy and girl of today to meet the problems of their complex I world with reasonable assurance of solving them. While many of the problems that young people must eventually lace, such as the selection of a mate, lie in the future, other problems intrude during high school years.

These problems might conveniently be called the problems ot growing up. The adolescent is increasingly aware of the adult world around him, aware of its fancies and foibles. As he becomes more conscious of it, he sometimes reaches out for the trappings of adulthood to him.

To the unthinking high school youth of today, adulthood is often synonymous with driving a car, staying out late, dating, smoking and drinking. The latter two activities of high school students, smoking and drinking, were the focal points of this study.

Certainly, to smoke or not to smoke, to drink or not to drink, are problems important to high school students. Surrounded by an adult world that smokes and drinks, bombarded with propaganda through the various media of advertising, the adolescent is justifiably confused when he hears that it is not right for him to smoke and drink. It is no wonder that he finds it difficult to achieve an unemotional, reasonable attitude toward tobacco and alcohol.

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