View from The Boys: A Sociology of Downtown Adolescents.

The down‐town adolescents have a bad reputation but The Boys from Roundhouse are more than stereotyped down‐town adolescents. Roundhouse is one well‐known downtown neighborhood which stands close to the center of Liverpool. The adolescent out of school and hungry for the status of adulthood sets off in search of finance to purchase that manhood. When casual work dries up, he hangs around. Having grown up where he has and knowing what he does, the adolescent, if the circumstances are right and because of his limited commitment to the dominant social morality, may try to cut across the rules. When The Boys began stealing car radios of a type called catseyes, they were first warned against and then punished. When they tried again, some of their number were put in confinement. Although they greatly resented this treatment, most felt that continuing proscribed behavior in the face of such opposition was irrational; the majority, for a while at least, has capitulated and complied. Local economic expansion has provided jobs for them and several have gotten married. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]