Youth culture

Peer acceptance and social behaviour during childhood and adolescence:

How important are appearance, athleticism, and academic competence?
Kathryn Vannatta, Maria A. Gartstein, Meg Zeller and Robert B. Noll

By Anna, Warren and Astra

Introduction to
Youth Culture
What is Youth Culture?

To understand youth culture

you must understand what
Culture is.
Ultimately, culture is our way
of life. Culture includes our
customs, languages and
traditions
Youth culture is the way
adolescents live, and the
norms, beliefs, and everyday
practices they share.
Youth culture is everywhere.

Development of Youth Culture

Youth culture was developed in the 20th century when it became

more mundane for adolescents to come together.
Historically, prior to this period many teenagers spent most of
their time with adults or child siblings.
Compulsory schooling and other societal changes made the joint
socialization of adolescents more prevalent.

Peer Acceptance during Childhood

Peer acceptance and relationships are important to children's social and emotional
development.
Peer acceptance and friendship provide a wide range of learning and development
opportunities for children.
These include companionship, recreation, building social skills, participating in
group problem solving, and managing conflict.
In early childhood, friendship is usually associated with sharing a current activity,
whereas in middle childhood children begin to recognize that friendships can last
over time.
School-age children usually indicate an increasing appreciation of each others
feelings and intentions.
Please watch our Video Scribe on YouTube which introduces the idea of peer
acceptance during childhood. http://youtu.be/0P5TwlaS4ns

Social Behaviour during Childhood

Peer and friendship networks are likely to form because of three factors,
based on the principles of social learning theory discussed earlier (Hartup,
1996):
Sociodemographics. Children are likely to come into proximity because of
age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, etc.
Social Selection. Children construct relationships with others who are
similar to themselves or to whom they are attracted.
Mutual Socialization. Children become increasingly similar to their friends
as they interact.

Normally children who

are accepted by peers
have fewer problems in
middle and high school,
and teens who are
popular have fewer
emotional and social
adjustment problems as
adults.
Peer-accepted children
may be shy or assertive,
but they often have welldeveloped
communication skills.

Methods Used in Research

School based socio-metric assessments with classrooms of children who were
being treated for sickle cell disease, cancer, or juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
in grade 2-10
Only %5 of the participants were children with a chronic illness
4974 children in 247 classrooms at 198 different schools
Revised class play (RCP). It is a peer report measure of children's behavioural
reputation

Four subscales: Leadership

popularity, prosocial
behaviour, aggressivedisruptive behaviour, and
sensitive-isolated behavior.
These subscales reflect
peer perceptions of
patterns of social behavior
and interactions in the
peer group and not social
status.
Peer acceptance ratings. A
roster listing of all the
boys and girls within a
class accompanied by a 5point rating scale. 5 is
someone you like a lot and
1 is someone you dont
like.

Results of Research
Multiple regression analysis: examines the unique association of
each attribute with peer acceptance and each dimension of
behavioral reputation
Each of these attributes accounted for a significant proportion of
unique variance in peer acceptance in both samples.
Leadership popularity. Peer perceptions of appearance,
athleticism, and academic competence accounted for positive
child attributes predicting high levels of leadership popularity
Prosocial Behaviour: Positive peer perceptions; however, higher
scores in this dimension were associated with lower, not higher,
athleticism scores.
Aggressive-disruptive behaviour: This was associated with higher
levels of athleticism and more negative peer perceptions of
appearance and academic competence
Sensitive-isolated behaviour: Negative peer perceptions of
personal attributes were associated with higher scores in this
category.

Review of Article

http://voice.adobe.com/v/4EWZdDcbotU

Conclusion
Culture is our way of life. It defines who we are, who we want to be, and
where we are situated in social groups.
The 19th century push for formal organized education, in the west, grouped
youth together.
In defining their own culture, youth often base peer acceptance on outward
appearance, athletic skills, and, to a lesser extend, academic ability.
These three factors have an enduring affect on self-worth, compromising (or
elevating) leadership and social capabilities into adulthood.
More research is needed to observe if adult intervention, as well as the
training of inclusive behaviour skills, can offset the long-term negative
aspects of youth culture and socialization.

Discussion Questions
1. What programs have you seen implemented within schools or outside of
schools to promote youth development?
2. What movie/television characters can be a real inspiration for todays
youth? What movie/television characters are negative influences on todays
youth?

References
Hartup, W. W. (1996). The company they keep: Friendships and their
developmental significance. Child Development, 67, 1-13.
Vannatta, K. (2009). Peer acceptance and social behavior during childhood
and adolescence: How important are appearance, athleticism, and academic
competence (4th ed., Vol. 33, pp. 303-311). Columbus, Ohio: International
Journal of Behavioral Development.