Revisiting Adolescent Society: School Organization, Peer Culture, and Teacher Control Strategy

• In Event: 228 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 13. Morality and Socialization

Abstract

This study is based on the author’s five-years of fieldwork, 35 teacher and 55 student follow-up interviews, and an historical analysis of the “Holistic High School” in Taiwan. While most research discusses how the configuration of social ties influences the status system of teenagers, how that status structure transmits culture is seldom illustrated. The study asks: What factors bridge the gap between adolescent society and adult community? How do teenagers develop rituals to enter or exit adolescent subgroups, and how do they achieve success in adolescent society? Finally, how do teachers use institutional settings to select these raw materials into adult languages?
This study relies on the concepts “playing” and “learning.” Learning is a cultural process that transmits structured knowledge. In contrast, playing is a cultural process based on a series of loosely defined and highly interactive games that helps teenagers recognize their status position in peer society. I argue, through playing, teenagers combine, create, and integrate social categories to include or exclude others On the other hand, teachers select sexuality, masculinity, and “their rules” that they develop to tailor adolescent social categories into adult languages, such as law, modern dance, and rock and roll. The separation between the form and content of games and their integration into the content of learning are strategies adults use to educate students learning to play and playing to learn. I illustrate the interrelation between culture and status and point out that diffusion and imitation are two cultural mechanisms that maintain status systems.

Author

• Ruo-Fan Liu, University of Wisconsin-Madison