> all the potential social advantages of being roughly grouped by age
Actually, from what I've seen the one-room-schoolhouse concept is the best. You don't have a single age-group preying on each other in a lord-of-the-flies situation.
True socialization comes from interacting with a reasonable sample of society, in its natural state - such as being surrounded by people of all ages interacting with each other. If we ship kids off the age-segregated prisons every day they become hyper-focused on the views of their peers and vulnerable to pressure.
Actually, from what I've seen the one-room-schoolhouse concept is the best. You don't have a single age-group preying on each other in a lord-of-the-flies situation.
True socialization comes from interacting with a reasonable sample of society, in its natural state - such as being surrounded by people of all ages interacting with each other. If we ship kids off the age-segregated prisons every day they become hyper-focused on the views of their peers and vulnerable to pressure.