The book examines: (1) what the students perceive to be the relationship between success in school and success in future life; (2) how students view boy-girl relationships, their attitudes on contraception and responsibility, where sex fits into their lives in relation to school; (3) the realization of these students that they are able to choose which of their peers will be their friends; (4) the nature of family interactions in both nuclear and single-parent families; (5) the lives of parents, from their points of view, and whether student success is based on the ability of parents to pass on values to their children; (6) what seems to be the primary self for these students as opposed to their less academically successful peers, what gratification they are willing to forego for success in school, their expectations of their schools and their teachers; (7) the impact of the teacher on student success, teacher attitudes, parent attitudes toward teachers, and the phenomenon of teacher burnout; (8) the various groups to which students belong and the influence of these affiliations; (9) students' views of why they succeed; (10) how selves are created, what students internalize, and the social construction of meaning in the school; (11) ways of teaching, ways of creating programs and schools, ways of reorganizing existing schools to set up educational environments that would best serve students in the task of integrating their various selves. Appendix. references, index