"Probably. Not sure about the time frame though.

Being forced into schooling leads to more rebellious attitudes; "teen angst" seems to be the major defining feature of adolescence. It also removes them from the workforce, which seems to be considered a major part of adulthood. "

My point is that it was only since 1910s USA that a large fraction of elder teens was forced to secondary schools. Until then secondary schools were a preserve of minority consisting of upper and aspiring middle class - and that minority could be and was forced to treat secondary school as extension of childhood.
In USA, the secondary school graduates in 1910 were 9 % of the cohort. By 1940, it was 53 %.
Compare and contrast Britain - just 15 % of the 1960 cohort graduated from secondary school.
For a summary of how 1950s girls secondary schools of Britain were treated BOTH by the contemporary writers AND in fact, as depicted in the memory of girls commenting in 1990s, see
http://www.ju90.co.uk/sex.htm
The comparison between the extended-childhood nice girls and their adult agemates:
"Although the Chalet School uniform was far more attractive than Evans recalls her own as being, on one occasion Brent-Dyer did agree that dress was "the preoccupation of the vulgar lower orders". In A Problem for the Chalet School (1956) Joan Baker follows her scholarship-winning friend Rosamund Lilley to the Chalet School after her father "had a big win on the Pools" (Brent-Dyer, 1956c, p38). (Doing "The Pools" was a mainly working-class occupation, based as it was on football scores.)

Joan's idea of a semi-evening frock was a bright scarlet jersey-cloth heavily braided in black and far too old-looking for a schoolgirl. Her hair had been artifically waved and crinkled over her head in stiff waves. She wore a large cameo brooch which swore at the red of her dress and a string of red beads. She was also powdered and lip-sticked in a way that had made Elinor nearly gasp aloud. The Seniors at the Chalet School might use a dust of powder and even a little pink lipstick on state occasions, but it had to be properly applied. . . Only girls of sixteen or over might use make-up at all and Elinor guessed that Joan Baker was nowhere near that yet. (Brent-Dyer, 1956c, p63)

Later Jack Maynard tells Mary-Lou:

You've got to remember one thing, my child, and that is that I rather think Joan belongs to people who finish school at fifteen. That means that they are much more grown-up about that sort of thing than most of you girls who expect to stay at school for at least another two years with two or three years of training to follow. In consequence, you give your minds to games, lessons, and things of that kind. You are much younger there, than girls like Joan. (Brent-Dyer, 1956c, pp115-116)

"People who finish school at fifteen" were, of course, mainly working-class.
sex13

Evans recalls that her school also believed, like Jack, that middle-class girls remained much younger than working-class girls.

We were not told that we could not wear make-up or pierce our ears; it never occurred to anyone that we would do these things . . . Our childhood, as far as the school was concerned, was to be endlessly extended until we were adults. (Evans, 1991, p92)
"

So. Do you agree with the argument that adolescence did not exist in Britain of 1956?
A girl was either in high school, in which case she was still in extended childhood and treated as such, or she had finished school at fifteen, in which case she would go to work and be an adult for almost all purposes.

Although not all. The 15 year old who finished school at 15 could work, wear jewelry and makeup and otherwise dress as an adult... but the Age of Consent had been raised to 16 back in 1885, so if that 15 year old Joan Baker picked up a nice 18 year old boy and had consensual sex with him, he would be convicted for it.

Do you therefore agree that adolescence did not exist before mass secondary education?




• ( http link ) Girls before they got adolescence
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