Secondary education generally constituted by 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades (corresponding roughly to ages 14–17). It is separated from elementary education by an intermediate stage of middle school (grades 5–8) or junior high (grades 7 and 8), often housed in separate buildings. High school represents a crucial and difficult period of transition both academically and socially Academically it entails specialization, differentiation and competition—a transition to college for many although some will only complete the education legally required of them (leaving when grade level or age permits). Socially and psychologically moreover, this is a time of changing sexuality independence, experimentation and peer relations which produces a strong group culture among teenagers, as well as sometimes highly charged relations with parents and educators. Hence, concerns with education and growth intersect with fears about violence, security sexuality, drugs and adjustment in American images of high school.

In 1965, 11,610,000 students in grades nine to twelve were enrolled in public schools in the US, with an additional 1,400,000 in private schools. By 2000, numbers in public schools had risen to 13,357,000, a rise projected to continue, while those in private schools remained constant. In 1960, 41.4 percent of Americans completed four years of high school, while in 1997 this had risen to 82.1 percent (dropouts constitute roughly 5 percent of the high-school population). These numerical changes are only part of the changing meaning of high schools. High schools were primary sites for integration and racial conflicts from the 1950s onwards, for example. They also have been caught in the decline of inner cities (with aging “problem” schools), the rise of suburbs with a new consumer ethos, class and racial divisions and demands for huge student parking lots.

High schools must respond to these multiple changing demands, extremely diverse populations and contradictory needs while also constrained, in the case of public schools, by limited finances. Academic programs, for example, have become more costly in terms of computers and equipment required for sciences, libraries and research materials and changing demands for first- and second-language learning. Given the juxtaposition of students from different class and ethnic/racial backgrounds at the same school, moreover, school systems face the choice of dividing programs (tracking by strata of tested intelligence or career goals) or constructing an academic “middle ground” that will frustrate special students. Magnet schools, specializing in sciences, arts or other fields, represent an alternative for larger school systems (see Fame, 1980). At the same time, schools may be forced to cut teacher-intensive programs like art or drama to balance their budgets, or rely on television and large classes to deal with mass education. Private and parochial schools control selection of students more closely and raise funds for specific activities, but they too, strain to compete and balance the needs of mass projects against individual changes and demands.

Counseling has also become increasingly necessary and complex, dealing with issues ranging from home life to learning disabilities to multicultural issues. Concern with gender stereotyping (male athletes versus cheerleaders) and sexuality including gay issues, have also become prominent. In many areas, from sexual education and driver’s education to civic involvement, the high school must take over roles previously managed by the family.

Other services in high school include food, basic healthcare and, increasingly security Lunch and breakfast may entail a form of welfare or a competition for privilege to escape campus.

In addition, high schools incorporate expanding extra-curricular activities, including sometimes massive sports programs, journalism (newspapers, yearbooks, literary magazines), travel, bands and orchestras, drama, volunteer and community service, preprofessional formation (Future Farmers of America, Future Teachers) and other interests, generally under faculty supervision. These promote both interests and leadership among students, training for citizenship outside the classroom (or filling résumés for college applications and scholarship competitions). They may also become sites for intense competition among students for internal and external recognition. Such activities may also raise questions of freedom and censorship, for example, in the case of school newspapers, or the rights of students as citizens, in the case of drug tests for participation in activities.

American high schools, moreover, are community institutions, especially in the case of consolidated public institutions with several thousand students. Through social reproduction of community and parental involvement, programs in sports may become community surrogates. High-school events, whether crises or celebrations (school plays, commencement, conflict), are rallying points for a wide range of views and participation. At the same time, high schools reflect divisions of race and class within their catchment pools, and have proved vulnerable to violence, censorship, political debate and social crises, from integration in the 1950s to guns and school shootings in the 1990s. American news media, for example, have often explored perceived high school in terms of threats of drugs, alcohol, tobacco and sexuality. In the Cold War period, the impact of anti-American ideologies through teachers and materials was also prominent, although this has given way to concerns with covert agendas of culture and sexuality The intensity of concern with high school is magnified by its role as a shared experience in American society and by the consumer power of high-school students, who are primary targets for advertising and consumption in fashion, music, Hollywood and fast food. This creates a mall culture as a spatial displacement of high school itself (as soda shops figured as a hang-out in postwar generations). Hence, depictions of high school pervade American literature and mass media. although they illustrate distinctive paradigms. One is the celebratory/nostalgic vision of movies like American Graffiti (1973) or Grease (1978) and long-running television series like Happy Days (ABC, 1974–84) or The Wonder Years (ABC, 1988–93), which build on postwar generations of “innocent” high-school films (teenage werewolves, beach movies, etc. in the 1950s/1960s). Nostalgic issues are also sorted out in “high-school reunions,” like Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and/or episodes of television sitcoms.

Others have seen high school from the point of view of outsiders created by a conformist peer culture—J.D. Salinger’s controversial classic Catcher in the Rye (1951) Jim Carroll’s Basketball Diaries (film, 1995, linked by mass media to the Columbine High School massacre) or the television series Freaks and Geeks (1999–). These sometimes coincide with media representations of high schools as places of serious social malaise (Asphalt Jungle, 1950; Dangerous Minds, 1998).

Other popular genres have combined celebration and soap-opera sexuality (the longrunning Beverly Hills 90210 (FOX, 1990–2000), Dawson’s Creek (WB, 1998–) or the movie Can’t Hardly Wait, 1999). Still others show teenage difference and experience (Breakfast Club, 1985; Pretty in Pink, 1986) or provide social commentary (Heathers, 1989; Clueless, 1995; Election, 1999). High-school depictions, however, rarely deal with complex academic issues. As both a complex formative experience and one whose participants seek knowledge, guidance and shared experience, depictions of high school, whether insightful or commercial, promise to be a staple of mass media for generations to come.