ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to offer an analysis of the role of representation in adolescents’ functioning within peer crowds. In every high school studied by social scientists, students have been found to differentiate one another and are differentiated by their membership in crowds. Crowds are conceptually organized in a categorical system in which, for instance, serious students are distinguished from adolescents who do not care for school, or, adolescents who smoke marijuana and attend rock concerts differ from students who do voluntary community service. The stable patterning of crowds within schools can be understood to have several important functions. It helps students cognitively order the array of peers within a school according to a shared symbolic system and allows individuals to use that system to present themselves clearly to the rest of their peers (Goffman, 1967).
