SOCIAL ORIGINS OF FULL-TIME YOUTH LEADERS.

The article focuses on the fact that in one sense full-time youth leaders are comparative newcomers to the British social scene. A great deal of thought has gone into the question of the recruitment, selection and training of full-time youth leaders. A research project in these areas has been conducted from the Westhill College of Education. The present paper is concerned only with that part of the research which examined the leaders' social class origins. It was hypothesized that they would come from homes which were lower middle-class, fathers being lower-grade non-manual workers. This estimate was based partly on a supposed parallel with recruits to the teaching profession. There are other features of the life-histories of the leaders which have come to be connected with traditional working-class life. Nearly all the parents concerned finished full-time schooling at the earliest age allowed by law at the time. This applies to forty-five fathers and forty-one mothers. The leaders themselves have fared better, since twenty-one reached grammar school at least. If one may hazard a generalisation about full-time youth leaders on the basis of this one constituency--they come from a working class background where their parents displayed some middle-class attitudes. They themselves have internalized those middle-class values.