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1 Consider these results from a study released last week by the Manhattan Institute, a New York-based think tank: Two-thirds of suburban and urban 12th-graders have had sex; 43 percent of suburban 12th-graders and 39 percent of urban 12th-graders have had sex during 'one-night stands.' 74 percent of suburban 12th-graders and 71 percent of urban 12th-graders have tried alcohol more than two or three times. Just over 40 percent of 12th- graders in urban and suburban schools have used illegal drugs. 20 percent of urban 12th grade girls have been pregnant; 14 percent of suburban 12th-grade girls havE.
2 The study was conducted via student surveys, and the data were collected from the same group of adolescents in three waves from 1995 to 20O2. The study, which surveyed an estimate of 20,000 students, was sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and other federal agencies. The study's authors, Jay Greene and Greg Forster, concluded that students in suburban high schools consume alcohol, smoke cigarettes and partake in as much illegal drug use as students in urban schools, and sometimes even more than their city counterparts. Students in suburban schools also had about the same levels of sexual behavior. as their urban counterparts. The authors suggest that folks who have been fleeing the city hoping to find a 'wholesome' life may just come up wanting.
3 Greene, a senior fellow at the institute, told me that he was surprised that the study showed there isn't too much of a difference between urban and suburban high schoolers
4 Surprised? That's because we continue to idealize the more affluent suburbs and demonize the poorer sections of the city. For decades, 'city' has been a euphemism for black and poor and decadent, and 'suburbs' synonymous with white and wealthy and puritanical. But, of course, neither has ever been totally truE.Yet, we're often still surprised when a group of well-to-do kids do something stupid and not so surprised when poor kids do.
5 Henry Binford, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, said there's a long history of idealizing suburban life that goes back to the 19th century. 'Part of the appeal for people moving out was for them to get away from the dirt and crime, poor services and the hurly-burly of the downtown,' he saiD.'Many imagined that the suburbs would be havens. They thought suburban life was healthier and more moral than city living. But the suburbs were never pure or safe or without difficulty as people thought they would bE.' It's fantasy duking it out with reality.
6 Why the similarities despite the differences in ZIP codes and, often, opportunities? For starters—and this is a no-brainer—adolescents will be adolescents no matter where they livE.They have to contend with similar peer pressures regarding sex, drugs and alcohol. Other pervasive influences, including various media messages, transcend suburban-urban boundaries.
7 Young people tend to have a high propensity for doing stupid things and getting themselves into sticky situations. How ZIP codes play a role is that some wealthier kids' parents can afford to get them unstuck far better than others. Most of us recognize that there is no hermetically sealed place to rear youngsters. But some people still think so, says Greene, a graduate of New Trier High School on the North ShorE.'A lot of the flight to the suburbs is still related to the perception that certain social ills are so concentrated in the city,' Greene saiD.That perception is reinforced by television shows and movies about city life; by the news. It's so ingrained that we tend not to question it. We take it for granteD.
8 One of the things that attracted me to this study was not so much the similarities—the 'findings' that kids will be kids wherever they live—but the continued shock about the
A.compare the behavior. of urban and suburban kids in terms of some social problems
B.highlight the gravity of some social problems involving kids
C.show the author's well-informedness
D.draw attention to the seriousness of problems with suburban kids