Peer Groups

The peer group -- a friendship group made up of children roughly the same age -- is another major agency of socialisation. In some small, traditional societies these groups are formally organised into recognised age-grades; even without such formal structures, most children past the age of four or five spend a great deal of time with same-age friends. The word 'peer' itself means 'equal', and relationships among young peers do tend to be markedly more egalitarian than the relationship between a child and a parent -- though a physically stronger or more forceful child can still try to dominate a group to some extent. …