The Adolescent Society. The Social Life of the Teenager and its Impact on Education: By James S. Coleman. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961. 368 pp.

This book is an elaborate documentation of the proposition that 'intellectual' is a dirty word in American culture. The milieu studied is that of Midwestern high schools, and it is found that the star athlete and the pretty girl have much higher status among their peers than the top student. This reviewer was gratified to find that a conclusion reached about her own Midwestern high school when she was sixteen is here substantiated with many graphs and tables.

Ten high schools in northern Illinois were selected from communities which exemplified a range in size and class composition. The main findings are based on questionnaires administered to students in 1957-1958. The students were asked what it takes to get into the leading crowd in their school, whether they considered themselves in the leading crowd, whether they would like to be someone other than themselves, what they would like to be remembered for at school, what kind of boy or girl they would like to date, and so forth. Relations among the variables contained in these questions have been statistically elaborated, with a breakdown for different