ABSTRACT
The goal of this chapter is to describe the range of social structures inhabited by young people, from cliques to social networks, and in so doing, to move beyond the peer group as a catch-all term for describing sociality structures among young people. Traditionally, the peer group has been a convenient identifier for all kinds of collectivities where youth are found, and has been invoked to explain all kinds of behaviour from risk-taking to school truancy and fashions in clothing. In my opinion, the peer group is a vague term that has been overworked, and it is overdue for retirement. After all, the term does not adequately represent the variety of group alliances that young people form with their peers; and the structures serve different social purposes that it is important to distinguish. Ennett and Bauman (1993) lamented this vagueness in terminology. They commented that, ‘Despite pervasive interest in the peer group, the literature reflects a surprising lack of clarity in conceptualizations of the peer group and little consideration of peer group structure’ (p. 227). This chapter enlists social network approaches in order to outline the different structural forms found in young people’s social relations. The group structures include cliques, peer crowds, and loose groups as network components. Each is described and its relations to other structures discussed. Moreover, information about a young person’s location in these structures is employed in order to understand aspects of individual development and a young person’s susceptibility to social influence.
