Chapter 4: Peers, Cliques and Mean Girls

Article: 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2083268.pdf

__________________________________________

Children's Peer Cultures

William A. Corsaro and Donna Eder

Annual Review of Sociology
Vol. 16, (1990), pp. 197-220

Published by: Annual Reviews

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2083268

Picture:

Peers Eating at a Lunch table 

Poremba, S. M. (n.d.). Lunch Table Wars - Helping Your Preteen Survive This Rite of Passage - General Articles - Preteenagers Today. Preteen and Teen Channel, preteenagers, teenagers, raising teenagers, discipline, peer pressure, drinking, drugs, driving, bullying, social pressure - . Retrieved April 6, 2011, from http://www.preteenagerstoday.com/articles/general/lunch-table-wars-1056/  

Video:

Howcast. (n.d.). Mean Girls [Best Scenes] . YouTube.com. Retrieved April 6, 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byPHFYt9ZUs&NR=1

  

Web Resources:

http://www.stopbullying.gov/kids/index.html  

http://www.pbs.org/parents/goingtoschool/social.html

Quote: 

“Words not only affect us temporarily; they change us, they socialize or unsocialize us.”

- David Riesman

Crossword: http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2011.04/1023/10231721.586.html
Key: http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2011.04/1023/10231721.586.ans.pdf

I think that I was most interested in the part of chapter 4 that talked about peer relationships. I grew up in a very loving family, that shaped me to be confident and to know that as long as I am doing my best, my best is always going to be good enough. So, in that respect my socialization should have caused me to be a woman with very high self esteem who has easy relationships with others.

However, I think there is another aspect that the book really doesn't seem to give much more than a passing glance to. I know that the part of my socialization that caused the most damage to my personal self esteem was my relationships with my peers. Specifically with one girl while I was going through elementary school and learning about my self worth. In the same way that she negatively affected my self esteem, I realize that there are many others out there, in particular young girls who learn their value from their peers. And that value is skewed due to "mean girls" and peer pressure.

I began my inquiry with an article that discussed peer cultures and their importance in children's lives. Children tend to spend far more time in social situations outside their home than in. The picture I chose was relevant in that the stories and the interactions seen in lunchroom conversation are the ways many children begin to make sense of the world and their place in it. The video has several scenes from the movie "Mean Girls" that shows just how much young women view themselves through the eyes of others and just how big of an issue bullying can be in a person's socialization.

I next put links to resources where people might be able to go as kids seeking help against bullying and for parents to try to make sense of what goes on in their children's lives as they head out to that yellow bus that will take them to school. In everything that I read in this chapter and in this section I chose to focus on I felt that my quote about words being the key to the way we socialize was the thread that was woven throughout this chapter.