Peer Group Pressure Within and Outside School

Abstract

This paper is based on an empirical study of a sample of 25 young people who have all had the experience of being excluded from school (and who are all young offenders). The research was based on qualitative explorations and memories of the subjects’ overall experience of school, through lengthy semi‐structured interviews. These interviews were designed to elicit information in an open way through the encouragement to talk confidentially and anonymously. There were no preset hypotheses, so that the consistency of the responses, including the terminology used, is significant. Amongst others, four main themes emerged; the experience of bullying; the significance of home life and its relation to school; the pressure of peers; and the relationship between truancy and exclusion. It is the issue of peer group pressure in particular that will be explored here. As the case‐studies reveal, the relationship between peer pressure and deviancy is a complex one. It did, however, emerge from the analysis that the peers are a powerful influence on the behaviour of adolescents, although in some ways these are unexpected. The paper explores the way in which peer group pressure relates to the counter influences of home and school.