Peer Influence

During adolescence, students spend far more time with their peers than they did during childhood years (Barker & Wright, 1951). Despite this increased association with their peers, peers can be both negative and positive role models on an adolescent's social development.  Since students spend more time with their family in childhood years, peers can provide useful information about other aspects of the world.  Adolescents can also compare themselves to their peers.  By interacting with their peers, adolescents develop crucial social and intimacy skills such as learning to listen and read social cues.  Peer interaction can also help adolescents to regulate emotions and be more positive in general.  If adolescents feel rejected by their peers, then the rejection can lead to depression, criminal activity, poor mental health, and loneliness (Benner, 2011; Brengden & others, 2010; Dishion & Tipsord, 2011).  Hearing differences between one's own parents and those of peers can lead to an adolescent challenging the parental values.

Because peers influence the way adolescents think so drastically, it is important for every student to feel respected and involved while at school (5.1).  One way that I hope to do this is by making sure that I mix up the groups for classwork so that friends are not with each other too often.  By mixing students who are not in the same peer group, they are able to learn about each others' lives and how people in other social circles think.  By exposing adolescents to peers with different interests, they learn more about the world around them.  I will also design a seating chart that will increase collaboration amongst different peer groups.  Since interacting with peers helps to develop social skills, exposing adolescents to members of all peer groups will allow the students to develop better communication skills with a variety of people of different backgrounds.