Joseph A. Montagna
Adolescents in our society spend a large amount of their time with peers. Changes in schools, work settings, and the family have led to the prominence that the peer group has in the psychosocial development of the adolescent. Is this rise to prominence of the peer group a problem, or is it a necessary part of life in Modern America? On one side society has led to a “youth culture”, the values of which run counter to the values of adults; and on the other side are those who maintain that peer groups provide a vital function in the socialization of the adolescent.
Nearly twenty-five years ago, James Coleman wrote that the increased age segregation of our youth has led to the prominence of the peer group in the development of adolescents, and has created their alienation from the goals and values of adult society. When Coleman asked of adolescents, “What does it take to get into the leading clique in your school?”, he found that their responses were: athletic prowess, personality and good looks for boys, and personality, good looks, good reputation and good clothes for girls. Good grades were at the bottom of everyone’s list. Coleman’s study was largely an indictment of contemporary society, placing all of the ills of growing up in it on the segregation of adolescents from adults. Coleman ignored the possibility that peer groups may actually be necessary to teach adolescents certain things and the impracticality of teaching young people in the same fashion as was done prior to World War II.
Our society makes it necessary to teach young people in large groups, in order to have reasonable assurance that the same messages are getting across to them. All individuals in our society are expected to learn the same set of norms. Modern society has created a system in which adolescents play an increasingly valuable role in teaching one another. According to the noted anthropologist, Margaret Mead, ours is a configurative culture. In a configurative culture changes occur so rapidly that much of what parents teach their young is outdated by the time they become adults. For adolescents in modern America, what peers teach them may be as important, if not more important, than what their parents teach them. The computer is an excellent means of illustrating this. Living with computers is easy for today’s youth. Computers have been a part of the world in their lifetimes. Very little anxiety is created within a youngster who is sitting in front of a computer and much of what they learn about computers is derived from their peers. On the other hand, many adults who are confronted by the green screen and blinking cursor experience anxiety often.
Adolescent peer groups are usually structured around cliques, groups of two to twelve individuals that structure the adolescent’s social activities. At first they are same sex groups, them change to mixed groups, then to opposite sex dyads as the adolescent moves from early to middle and late adolescence. The study of cliques is not as simple as the above may suggest. Occasionally, several cliques come together to form “crowds”, loosely organized around a particular activity or function, i.e. a school dance, a fundraising project, a party. Crowd formation seems to be a transitional stage that precedes dating. The crowd offers the sanctuary of the same sex peer group while affording the adolescent an opportunity to closely check out the opposite sex. Dating usually follows, generally led by the leaders of the cliques. Others follow as they resolve the dating issue within themselves. Middle adolescence is characterized by heterosexual cliques and crowds, although they are not quite ready to split off in opposite sex pairs. Eventually, as they move into late adolescence couples split off from the crowd, maintaining a loose tie With the larger group. This association with the larger group is through contact with other couples. The concept of the couple as the focus of social activity remains through adulthood. Early adolescence provides the seeds of an adolescent’s capacity for close relationships through friendships with same sex peers.
Cliques serve as a source of identity by acting as a reference group, a standard against which the adolescent evaluates his experiences, learns about himself, and forms judgments about his abilities. Cliques also serve as a provider of identity in the way one appears to other adolescents. Adolescents judge one another by the company they keep. Initially, cliques are formed on the bases of: same age, same sex, same social class and same race. However, the above list changes, eventually, to include two basic types of orientation, school orientation and youth culture orientation. These two determinants of clique formation provide a basis for friendships outside of one’s sexual, age and status groups.
