What determines the relative importance of multiple peer groups?
This is a question that did not have much of an answer until the 12th grade data came in and then it provided us with powerful insights into the role of peers. As we began to study our data, we found that students had multiple peer groups both inside and outside of school. These were comprised of close friends, cliques, crowds, and reference groups. Students began to expand both the size and number of groups to which they belonged as they traveled through high school. The importance of these groups as influences on students’ behavior also appeared to shift from close friends to the broader normative group as students got older and increased their experiences. Development appears to play a pivotal role in the importance of different peer groups, as well as new experiences, and to some extent ethnicity. Latinos were less likely to report the shift to the normative peer group, and rural students were more likely to report influence from the reference group than were urban students. Europe
