Responsibilities Assumed By Some Junior High School Youth In The Purchase And Care Of Their Clothes

The desire for distinction and recognition of accomplishment is very human and is expressed in various ways. According to Evans (15:3), one of the most common ways of expressing this desire is through the wearing of clothes. Studies have shown that in normal times, a family of moderate income spends from 12 to 15 percent of its income on clothing. From this total, stated Andrews (1:379, the average twelve-year-old is apportioned approximately 17 percent. Today, after many years of relative insignificance children\u27s clothing has taken an important place in research, and each year the freedom granted the younger generation reaches a height unheard of. According to Bigelow (5:lS0), in 1953, at least 90 percent of the families in the United States were concerned about making the most of their clothing dollars. Every family is functioning as an educational institution in which its members are learning about work, money, and personal responsibilities . In the family, the child\u27s education for assuming personal responsibilities can very well begin long before he is able to understand the meaning of the word. Duval (l4:lo), pointed out that training for responsibility in the first twelve years of his life lies largely with the parents though it is shared by the schools. One important family resource to be utilized in teaching clothing responsibility, according to Nickell and Dorsey (28:555), is attitude. Here it is necessary to remember that competent research has shown the probability that the basic attitude of the child toward clothing and toward the handling of his clothing experiences is likely to progress from the association of garments with bodily comfort or discomfort to the identification of clothing with social acceptability, according to Macauley (26:150). Of significance also, is the fact that most students of clothing, according to Dunlap (13:64), seem to agree that adolescence is the period of greatest clothes consciousness. It seems reasonable to assume that the pre-adolescent is forming a substantial portion of the basic attitudes which are to apply themselves to his adolescent judgments. Therefore, it may well be true that the handling of the clothing experiences of pre-adolescents contributes to the enduring personality traits and characteristics of these youth