Readiness and Resistance to Desegregation: A Social Portrait of the Hard Core

new clothing and foods to be eaten to participation in ceremonial activity. This pattern of giving the child wide freedom in personal choices of social action is in accordance with the adult social deference pattern idea that consent of a junior is required by a senior in actions affecting the junior person; this same idea is the basic rationale of the adults for the treatment of the child as a distinct social person. Consideration of the child as a person does not vary as he matures, it is essentially the same through the whole of the process of socialization. As a consequence of this pattern, children are thrown almost entirely on their own judgments as to proper action in specific social situations. The choices made are accepted by adults without comment until after puberty, when the child is supposed to know "what people do." These six patterns may be regarded as the main components of the Papago socialization process. Together, they impart to this process its characteristic uniqueness and represent the structure of the culturally derived ideas that constitute the major orientation points for adults in their elicitation of desired social behavior in the maturing child. This structure is felt to be the most likely locus for further research, for it appears to be the broad outline within which the factors of causality between the process of socialization and patterns of adult behavior probably will be found to be operative. At the present level of research no conclusions concerning causality can be offered. However, it can be pointed out that the Papago socialization process, in marked contrast to those of many other societies, is unencumbered by many deliberate attempts to use overt and specific techniques to lead children to exhibit behavior that is held by this group to be customary and acceptable.13