Marji, a 10-year-old preadolescent, is going to enter junior high next year. Based on your knowledge of adolescent development, what can you predict about how Marji's relationships with her friends will change throughout junior high and high school? (HINT: How do childhood peer relations differ from adolescent peer groups?)
What will be an ideal response?
During the teenage years, peer groups change in significance and structure along four main developmental lines. First, there is a sharp increase in the sheer amount of time individuals spend with their peers during adolescence. Adolescents usually spend time during and after school and on the weekends with other adolescents their same age. Second, during adolescence, peer groups function much more often without adult supervision than they do during childhood. As children grow into adolescents, adults allow more time without adult supervision. Third, during junior high, adolescents will start to form close friendship groups known as cliques with same-sex friends who have similar interests and characteristics. During later adolescence, more and more contact with peers involves opposite-sex friends. Sex segregation among peer groups is less common later in adolescence. Fourth, adolescence marks the emergence of larger collectives of peers, or "crowds," whose members share similar perceived attributes (e.g., being studious, being athletic). By the end of high school and later in adolescence, crowds lose their importance and become more diffuse. Children's peer relationships are mainly limited to pairs of friends and relatively small groups, so Marji can expect many changes in the years ahead in terms of her friendships and peer relationships.
Key Points:
a) Sharp increase in time spent with peers
b) Less adult supervision of adolescents
c) Increased contact with opposite-sex friends
d) Larger collectives of peers emerge (crowds), then fade in later adolescence.
e) Same-sex cliques form in early to middle adolescence, before crowds are formed.
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