ESSAY AND COMMENT
The Rise of the Youth Class
Historical reflection may well reveal a
significant relationship between
the unrest of the 1960's and the birth
of a new social class. Even from this
limited vantage point it is increasingly
apparent that young people for the
first time have identified themselves as
a separate class in society. Congre-
gated in large numbers on college and
university campuses, young people
have come to the self-realization that
they have common needs, grievances,
and ideals. And, following the pattern
of emerging classes of the past, the
youth class is beginning to assert the
rights to which it feels it is heir,
especially within the democratic
tradition.
The mass media, the emphasis upon
near-universal higher education, and
the Vietnam War have been chief
contributing factors in the solidification
of youth as a definable class. Radio and
television since World War II have
directed an increasing amount of
programming to this group. While adver-
tising has influenced children from the
tenderest years to think of them-
selves as an important sector of the
buying public, programs from Howdy
Doody to Captain Kangaroo have given them
a common framework for
thought and conversation. Teenagers have
found the essence of their de-
veloping subculture broadcast to them in
the sounds and images of folk-
rock singing groups replete with the
latest youth class symbols--mod cloth-
ing, bearded faces, and psychedelic
effects. The success of the Beatles by the
mid-sixties was a belleweather of the
unification of youth about a distinct
cultural pattern in the arts. By the end
of the decade, the Broadway musical
"Hair" became the
international art expression of the frustrations of young
people with the morality of middle class
society and the enunciation of the
youth class ideals regarding war, sex,
and race.
It was the emphasis upon higher
education, however, which brought the
youth together in great enough numbers
on university campuses to bring
its subculture, ideals, and grievances
into sharp enough focus to weld its
members into a self-conscious social
class. Just as the Industrial Revolution
brought the working masses of Europe
together in the cities where they
gradually saw themselves as the
oppressed proletariat which could act col-
lectively to win economic and,
ultimately, political concessions from the
bourgeoisie and nobility, so the
Education Revolution since 1945 has
brought nearly seven million students
together in American institutions of
advanced learning where many viewed
themselves as an aggrieved class and
united to achieve the democratic ideals
with which their education had fa-
miliarized them. If society called for
college degrees as requisites to oppor-
tunity and success, youth progressively
looked upon higher education more
as a right than a privilege and demanded
a voice in forming the policy in
the schools it had to attend. As the
unity of the youth class grew by