ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors explore how adolescents' egocentric peer friendship networks affect the process of career development. The authors’ conceptual framework is based on Georg Simmel's analysis of the elements of primary social relations, especially his distinction between their form and content. They use three sets of data, each collected in a group questionnaire administration during the 1992-93 school years. The authors construct measures of the respondents' schools and families and of their activities, beliefs, and educational and occupational plans from responses to items in a questionnaire that replicates portions of the NELS:88 survey of American high school students. In their findings on job knowledge and its correlates, the authors have found no less suggestive evidence of the importance of the network as a communication system and of network form as a set of attributes affecting the system's efficiency.
