Understanding Middle Grades Students’ Perceptions of Their Peer Worlds: Implications for Teaming

Abstract

According to This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents: A successful school for young adolescents is an inviting, supportive, and safe place-a joyful community that promotes in-depth learning and enhances students' physical and emotional well-being. In such a school, human relationships are paramount. (National Middle School Association [NMSA], 2010, p. 33) School environments that foster healthy relationships between teachers and students and among peers are best able to support young adolescents' social and emotional development and help them develop a healthy perception of their peer world at a time when relationships with peers become increasingly important. However, while young adolescents strive to develop closer relationships with peers and adults outside the home (Eccles, 1999; Rubin, Bukowski, & Laursen, 2009), many do not consider school to be a pleasant, inviting place where they feel a sense of connection (Juvonen, Le, Kaganoff, Augustine, & Constant, 2004). Much research on young adolescents' relationships the middle grades has focused on student-teacher relationships; however, close personal relationships among peers are a critical component of developmentally appropriate learning environments the middle grades (Jackson & Davis, 2000; NMSA, 2010). Moreover, while researchers have focused on changes within one particular aspect of the peer world (e.g., aggressive behavior) (Cillessen & Mayeux, 2004), to fully understand young adolescents' perceptions of the peer world, it is important to investigate multiple characteristics they perceive as being associated with social success among peers school and to study how these perceptions change over time. We believe that the development of healthy student-student relationships and positive perceptions of the peer world can be supported by creating and sustaining a more personalized school environment which students feel cared for and connected. For this to occur, educators need to understand students' peer world and the social norms, values, and behaviors that young adolescents may share with their peers. Additionally, they must consciously implement developmentally responsive school structures (i.e., interdisciplinary teaming) that allow for positive student-teacher and student-student relationships to thrive. The purpose of this article is to help middle grades educators become aware of young adolescents' social and emotional needs, including changes that occur the peer world during the middle grades, and gain a deeper understanding of the ways which interdisciplinary teams can promote positive student-student relationships and a healthy peer culture based on positive peer values. Understanding student perceptions of the peer world Peer relationships become increasingly important during early adolescence as an in or popular or leading crowd emerges among students school (Brown, 1990, 2004). While only a small percentage of students may have high social status among the peer group, these students are highly visible and easy to identify, because they are the focus of much attention from their peers (e.g., Coleman, 1961; Crockett, Losof, & Peterson, 1984; LaFontana & Cillessen, 2002). Students' increased focus on peer norms and popularity may reflect the greater need for belonging during early adolescence (Brown, 2004). Furthermore, cognitive changes allow young adolescents to increasingly appreciate and understand hidden norms and values the peer world and form perceptions about characteristics associated with social success the middle grades. As shown Figure 1, students may associate a variety of characteristics with social success school, including sincerity, responsibility, athleticism, appearance, and even domineering and disingenuous behaviors (Jarvinen & Nicholls, 1996). Some of these characteristics reflect positive aspects of the close, caring, and respectful relationships young adolescents form the middle grades. …