"Total institutions are viewed as highly controlling, confining, and bureacratic places where inmates have little contact with the outside world. Unfortunately, military boarding schools for boys are guilty by association in the general public's mind. But this book shows them to be such only in structure, and not for the content and process of what unfolds in the day-to-day lives of the cadets, their loved ones, and the staff that serves them. This book is important because it provides a rare view to the backstage world of the increasinly elusive and private military academy for children and adolescents. It provides a thick description of the everyday world of academies. It is a big picture perspective on military schools that board exclusively boys--it is comprehensive, deep, and grounded in a realtive reality boarding on some common, generalized truth. It is a social scientific examination of broad and important proportions, contrasted greatly with the narrower views of medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and educators, far more focused in their case studies." - Morten G. Ender, Sociology Program, US Military Academy, West Point --This text refers to the Library Binding edition. "I unequivocally and without reservation commend Dr. Trousdale's work as a must read for a potential parent, potential student, school administrator, counselor, teacher, and anyone just plain interested in this special educational setting....I found it knowledgeable, well constructed, and informative. It is the type of book long needed in the private military school arena as a guide to parents to dispel the myths about such schools. For far too long the truth has been clouded in mystery, half truths, and pure fiction. Dr. Trousdale's work fills a void and, even better, provides a real source of information for that parent or guardian seeking to find that special placement for ward or son." - Col. Roy W. Berwick, President, Oak Ridge Military Academy "Total institutions are viewed as highly controlling, confining, and bureacratic places where inmates have little contact with the outside world. Unfortunately, military boarding schools for boys are guilty by association in the general public's mind. But this book shows them to be such only in structure, and not for the content and process of what unfolds in the day-to-day lives of the cadets, their loved ones, and the staff that serves them. This book is important because it provides a rare view to the backstage world of the increasinly elusive and private military academy for children and adolescents. It provides a thick description of the everyday world of academies. It is a big picture perspective on military schools that board exclusively boys - it is comprehensive, deep, and grounded in a realtive reality boarding on some common, generalized truth. It is a social scientific examination of broad and important proportions, contrasted greatly with the narrower views of medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and educators, far more focused in their case studies." - Morten G. Ender, Sociology Program, US Military Academy, West Point"
