Envisioning the Power of Peers: Integrating Two Frameworks within the Sociology of Childhood

• In Event: 534 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Peers and Social Networks

Abstract

This article presents a theoretical model connecting insights across the sociological literature on children and youth. Scholars of youth have explored children’s active construction of peer cultures and their status as a group within the social structure. However, studies rarely connect the insights from micro-level peer culture research and structural perspectives on children and youth. Drawing upon Corsaro’s orb web model of children’s collective development of peer culture, we present the Power of Peer Culture Model to link these two approaches within the sociology of childhood. This model provides a graphical representation of children’s collective development of peer cultures while simultaneously considering variation in power by age and generation. We argue that the Power of Peer Culture Model will provide the motivation for further exploration within the sociology of childhood to consider how intergenerational power structures are reproduced and resisted within children’s peer cultures.

Authors

• Jessica Cadwell, Indiana University-Bloomington

• Jason Blind, Indiana University