Peers are one of the key agents of socialization in a child's life. For children and particularly adolescents, peers often constitute their main reference group. In other words, children and adolescents generally compare themselves, what they have, and how they behave to their age mates. In fact, adolescents often guide their own behavior and make decisions based on what their peers say and on their perceptions of what their peers think. This process of orientation toward peers grows in importance with age. It peaks in early and middle adolescence, which is one of the reasons why this period in a youth's life is often difficult, and also why delinquency rates are higher during that time. Then, toward the late teens and for others in young adulthood, age mates recede in importance as the young person is placed in social situations that cut across age groups. Furthermore, by that time, individuals' self-concept is more stable and peer influence becomes less salient as new adult roles are assumed.

In our society, the peer group constitutes a particularly potent form of influence on children because it is embedded in a materialistic culture based on consumerism, immediate gratification, and mediadriven activities. From a macrosociological perspective, children and youth are manipulated on many fronts by larger social forces that are individualistic rather than familistic and communal. Youths are situated in an acquisitive nexus of consumer-driven forces. Thus, because peers are an adolescent's reference group, this reference group is itself impacted by larger social forces that become symbolic or ever virtual points of reference for children.

In the past, children's peer groups were less separated from the adult world and less age graded in terms of values, goals, and even activities. No virtual or "mediatic" voices and persons sold them an ever-changing lifestyle that separated them from the adult world. Children played together and even worked together but they were more likely to encounter adult authority figures who would provide them with a structure that maintained them within the basic realities of their families and their communities. Adults were then far more effective agents of collective socialization; functional communities contributed to integrate children and youth (Coleman and Hoffer, 1987).

As the peer group separated from the adult world and became more influential, parents' influence diminished. In fact, unless children are part of an effective community, peer influence may clash with parental influence several times daily. As adult influence in the form of teachers, clergy, and older kin became more distant, parents remained children's main source of adult influence in their lives. Therefore, in terms of socialization, parents were isolated, no longer surrounded by adult support, and, as such, their influence waned. Similarly, as peers became more important in a child's life, they became so in parents' lives. Children are now more affected by their peers and this effect spills over into family dynamics, hence the importance of studying the effect of children's peers on parents.

PEER PRESSURE AND SUPPORT

There is a general adult perception that children and youth engage in unacceptable behavior as a direct result of their peers "pressuring" them. By this definition, direct pressure involves an element of coercion, such as when a small child is told by an older bully to hand over his lunch money "or else I'll beat the shit out of you." Or when a domineering teen gives another one a cigarette and orders him to smoke it. Or when, at a party, a group of boys forces another to engage in sexual activities. Of course, all of these events do occur occasionally, particularly in deviant areas or peer groups, and when children are poorly supervised. Researchers, however, define these instances as forms of bullying rather than peer pressure-and we disuss bullying later on. In terms of peer pressure, these occurrences -present the exception rather than the norm.

Peer pressure is more subtle than bullying. It resides in the fact tha post of a child's friends and contemporaries engage or are thought to ngage in an activity and not in the fact that they will force him or he to do it as well. Children whose friends are studious receive an indi ect message that perhaps they should also do their homework, espe cially if they value their peers' opinion. This is what we will call a studious" peer environment. Thus, children feel peer pressure ever hough no one has asked them to do anything. In terms of interactionism, friends are an important reference group that contribute not only to how children see themselves but how they choose to -have. But some peer pressure also arises out of a child's erroneous perception that "everyone else has one or is doing it," while, in real ty, this is not the case. For instance, adolescents often brag about fabulous weekends or parties when they return to school on Mondays /et they were simply at home with their parents. But these "stories' lead others who had also been home to think of themselves a deprived. In turn, they feel pressured to "get a life" or "live my life."

A teenager whose friends all smoke cigarettes or marijuana may not be asked to share in their activities, but will feel left out if he or she does not. If things are not going too well at home and the child has weak self-esteem, he or she may feel compelled to join in for fear tha friends think he or she is "uncool" or a "loser." Slowly, a message forms in the child's mind and this is where the pressure exists: it i psychological, although its source is environmental. Peer pressure resides in the cultural climate of the peer group and permeates activi ies as well as ways of thinking. At times, a particularly popular am influential peer engages in certain activities and has a strong impac on slightly younger peers, as seen in the following student's autobiography.

This twosome of Pete and I became a threesome when we me Alan who was a saxophone player in the band. The three of u got along very well.... It wasn't until the end of grade eight that we started to feel Alan's influence over us when he introduce us to cigarettes. This influence was brought about by the fact that Alan had an older brother who was involved in a group of friends which was made up of what I considered "tough" people. Alan had tried smoking and one day he brought a cigarette with him to school. The three of us went out back at recess and Alan sparked it up. I remember the taste in my mouth after that first puff; it was awful but it was exciting at the same time.... Our parents didn't suspect a thing as we would do everything we could to mask the smell. One day as we sat and smoked together behind the school, Alan told us of how his brother had tried smoking pot. The three of us were very interested and arranged for Alan's brother to get us some to try. A few weeks later it happened. It was Saturday and the three of us went to the forest by Pete's house. Alan pulled out a bag of what looked like a few hand-rolled cigarettes. We smoked them and nothing happened. We were disappointed but Alan assured us that one was not supposed to get high the first time. While making the transition from cigarettes to pot, my home life, appearance, and extracurricular activities changed. No longer did I communicate with my family, do homework, or play sports. Instead I started to listen to heavy rock music, hang out at an arcade, grow my hair long, and wear ragged clothes.... I had perfected the art of deception, which kept my family in the dark the whole time. I found this quite amusing and keeping my parents ignorant was an exciting game.

The above quote illustrates how negative peer influence may work, particularly within a small friendship group, and leads from one slightly deviant activity to a more serious break with acceptable behavior. The quote also quite vividly describes how these peer activities actually affect the quality of the youth's interaction with his family and how they affect his parents. The direction of causality flows from peer group to adolescent to parents. This quote also illustrates how deviant activities shared with friends can distance an adolescent from prosocial activities such as schoolwork and team sports. In turn, this distancing will have a further negative impact on parents who are concerned about their child's sudden loss of interest in developing his human capital.

Peers who are friends and, even more so, close friends, naturally influence or can influence one another more forcefully. In fact, a child who is surrounded by a negative peer group may well be able 1 resist this influence if he or she happens to have one or two close friends who have similar expectations in life, particularly when these two friends have supportive parents. This combined little group c friends and adults then has a degree of closure from the rest of the world and protects its children. But the characteristics of a neighborhood and its schools largely determine the effect of peer support on children.

For instance, Dubow, Edwards, and Ippolito (1997) found that children in inner-city neighborhoods who have recently suffered stress ful situations exhibit higher levels of antisocial behavior when the report receiving peer support. In contrast, family support has a positive effect and is related to reduced antisocial behaviors. These researchers point out that "the choice of peers may depend, in great part, on the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which the children reside" (Dubow, Edwards, and Ippolito, 1997:141). In other words, areas with many social problems may have fewer prosoch peers available to a child so that in times of stress, he or she receive "support" from peers who may be antisocial. This factor increases th child's vulnerability both to additional stressors and to misbehaving. In contrast, in a low-risk neighborhood, Gonzales and colleague (1996) found that peer support predicted higher grade point average among African-American children. Therefore, where a family lives has a great deal of impact on its children's access to a potentiall prosocial, supportive peer network.

Having high-achieving peers can influence children's and adolecents' enjoyment of school as well as contribute to raising their own test scores and expectations (Mounts and Steinberg, 1995). Peer seem to be a relatively more potent source of influence than parent in terms of school performance among African- and Asian-America youngsters than among white adolescents (Steinberg et al., 1995; This stems in part from racial segregation, if not necessarily always a the residential level, at least in schools. Asian Americans have "no choice but to belong to a peer group that encourages and rewards aca demic excellence-for better or for worse, it is extremely difficult for an Asian youngster to become a jock,' or a `druggie,' or a `preppie' (Steinberg et al., 1995:449). The dilemma faced by African-Ameri can students is more or less the reverse; for them, belonging to school crowd of "nerds" is difficult. In fact, Steinberg and colleagues were often told by successful black students that peer support for academic achievement was so limited that they often opted to affiliate primarily with students from other ethnic groups. Black students are far more likely than others "to be caught in a bind between performing well in school and being popular with their peers" (Steinberg et al., 1995:449).

The neighborhood approach to peer support and influence is more sociological and has the advantage of avoiding the psychological reductionism whereby peers and children are described strictly through their personality characteristics or those of their parents. Indeed, it will not surprise the reader to learn that a substantial proportion of the research literature on children's affiliation with peers focuses on parents and how they treat their children. Basically, the line of reasoning of this research is as follows: Children who are not popular with their school crowd or are rejected by their peers have certain social incompetencies that originate in their relationship with their parents or the ways in which they were treated at home. Children who experience difficulties at home are less likely to be popular at school. And, indeed, the research finds modest correlations supporting this line of reasoning.

But the size of these correlations indicates that other aspects in a child's personality and environment account far more for popularity with peers than do parents. One can think here of a child's partly genetic predisposition to shyness, extroversion, or leadership ability (Stoneman et al., 1999). One can also think in terms of a child's size, material possessions, race, and quality of peer group. For instance, an agreeable and prosocial child who is thrust into a classroom of children who are aggressive and have an "attitude" is quite unlikely to be well received. The child may actually become a victim, although there is obviously nothing wrong with this child or with his or her parents.