Children's Peer Cultures

Despite its long history as an important concept in sociological theory, there have been few studies of children's peer culture. By peer culture, we mean a stable set of activities or routines, artifacts, values, and concerns that children produce and share in interaction with peers. Most research on peer culture has focused on adolescent peer values, interests, and identities (Coleman 1961, Cusick 1972, Simmons & Blyth 1987). Recently, however, detailed ethnographic studies have been made of interactive processes within the peer culture of preschool and elementary school children (Berentzen 1984, Corsaro 1985, Davies 1982, Fine 1987, Goodwin 1989, Mandell 1986, Rizzo 1989, Thorne 1986), as well as of preadolescents and adolescents (Eder 1985, Everhart 1983, Lesko 1988, Willis 1981, Wulff 1988). In this chapter we examine these and other studies: (a) to describe activities, routines, values, and concerns within the peer cultures of children from the preschool years through adolescence; (b) to identify specific themes and changes in children's peer cultures and how these are related to demands from the adult world; and (c) to develop the theoretical implications of the research for an interpretive theory of childhood socialization. Before turning to these issues, we will first consider the place of peer