ABSTRACT
Many educators and social scientists have expressed concern about the influence of peers on adolescents’ attitudes and behavior. In the 1970s, Bronfenbrenner (1970) argued that adolescents often conform to pressure from peers to engage in undesirable behavior. He said that “where the peer group is to a large extent autonomous—as it often is in the United States—it can exert influence in opposition to values held by adult society” (p. 189). More recently, Bishop (1989) argued that many high school students are not motivated to achieve academically, in part because they give in to peer pressure against working hard in school (see also Coleman, 1961; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986).
