The Effects Of Peer Pressure In School

As both the standards of school work and stress levels of student’s rise, the American school system remains unaltered, unchanged, and unaffected for over a hundred years. School is an institution that can serve as a massive gate in life granting you access to a job, stability, and a future or it can become a giant pillar in the way of everything you wish to achieve. While we recognize that a student’s own motivation, study habits, and will to learn, are cardinal in any schooling system, we must also understand the issues with an institution that is fundamentally unsound from the ground up. In today’s world, students are shoved with the hands of docility, and amenability as they render themselves in a system that has inadvertently failed them, by neglecting to celebrate their differences, and varying learning patterns. Conformity in the education system has shown to damage the personalization and

Unfortunately, no one is exempt from the effects of peer pressure. The current society is in an epidemic of herd mentality. In its simplest terms, its effect can be seen in what is worn or even how people act. Society tells

Peer pressure is the influence a peer group has on its members to fit into a particular way of thinking and behaving. When children are very young the major influences in their lives are their family and caregivers. Behaviour, attitudes and expectations in young children are learned from the modelling of others. This is the way we all learn, first from caregivers and then we include our peers when we start school and attend any activity away from family. Our Peers have a considerable influence on our behaviour and outlook on life as we all learn together. Youth spend large amounts of time with Peers, who are learning about themselves as they grow up.

As a student, I am often troubled by the rigid routines of the school day, despite the fact that I am actually a very habitual person. The constant ringing of bells, lectures, bellwork, classwork, homework, each a daily practice throughout the school year. Although all of these components promote conformity, which will ultimately support the balance of school and societal norms, they also tend to threaten each student’s own unique characteristics. This then poses the question; to what degree should schools encourage conformity versus individuality? Certainly, a level of conformity is required to achieve a balanced society however, the overall structure of the school day and class, including the methods used to teach and mandatory classes,

In the novel, Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, author, Alexandra Robbins conveys the message that today’s society, including school systems, parents, friends, and students themselves, puts so much pressure on students to succeed (which means doing well well on standardized tests having high GPAs/class ranks, and being accepted into prestigious schools and universities.) This extreme amount of pressure can result in students not learning as much while at school, as well as unhappiness and other issues. Robbins conveys this message throughout the novel by following multiple students around school at Walt Whitman High to discover what the “perfect” overachiever secretly goes through in order to be successful.

“Don’t let anyone hold you back. Don’t let anyone dilute you. Don’t be peer pressured into being less than you are” (Steve Maraboli). This quote means that negative peer pressure can result in an individual acting out and behaving in a manner that is a downgrade from the person that is true to society. Often time, the community imagines peer pressure as teens influencing one another to experiment with drugs, alcohol, and sexual intercourse. But really all peer pressure is, is the encouragement of changing values and behaviors of an individual. Peer pressure can either be negative or positive depending on the situation a person is in and how strong the character of the individual is. Though peer pressure is often used in negative instances, it can also be thought of as positive for teens, because it allows a student to have a clear mental mindset, strong encouragement to work hard in school, and become a leader in an environment.

More than ever in this society as children find the need to belong or fit in to the popular crowd in school for acceptance they often tend to mimic their friends behaviors. This is often a result of the individual child trying to find him or herself. The results however, are not always negative. In fact, there are some positive results that may occur as a result of copying their peers. Simply stated, “When teens surround themselves with people who make good decisions and who are involved with positive activities and choices, it makes the adolescent child want to be better” (Stock, 2010 pg.2). Positive peers influence adolescents and can drive the child toward improved confidence, and improved grades in school. Inversely, the same can be said for the adolescent child who decides that he or she wants to be like his or her friends who have a negative influence. Children who fall into this category are those that are of the bandwagon philosophy. Those negatively impacted by peers often show signs of lower grades in school, increased distance from family. In fact, “peer pressure can lead to experimentation with drugs and alcohol, and various high risks behaviors” (Fact Sheets, 2009 pg.1). The changes in the adolescent child can have lasting effects depending on which type of peer influences that child may be surrounded by. The negative impact of peer pressure can be strong; however there are also positive influences.

“This is a book about pressure–about how the pressure on the students, parents, teachers, and graduates has whirled out of control and will continue to do so exponentially unless there is a massive change of attitudes and educational policies. The intensifying pressures to succeed and the drive of the overachiever culture have consequences that reach far beyond the damaged psyches of teenage college applicants, though that effect alone should be enough for us to take notice” (15). The first sentence serves as the main thesis, and the second one serves to strengthen the thesis. These two sentences explicitly inform the readers the main argument of this book–the weaknesses of the American education system. By placing this statement toward the beginning of the book, the author raises the readers’ attention, making them ready for further evidences and analysis later in the

School is a crucial part of a person’s life due to the amount of knowledge and successability a person might gain in their future. School can also be a place where students can interact with their fellow friends, but for others it can be a traumatizing place due to the amount of stress and also responsibility they might carry . This can be because of the stress teachers may put on the students. This can lead to students not giving their full effort on school, which will cause them to be mediocre students, and they wouldn’t be able to show their teacher the true potential they carry within themselves. These types of students are the one’s who are typically the students that aren’t successful in school. They just don’t

Print. "Peer Pressure." Gale Student Resources in Context, Gale, 2012. Student Resources in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ2181500280/SUIC?u=etiwanda_hsl&xid=00719f9f. Accessed 4 May 2017.

There are two types of groups when it comes to peer pressure. There is a group that causes peer pressure and pressures others to submit to their ideas; and there is the group that submits into the peer pressure to ‘fit in’. The second one is the group that conforms. This is detrimental because a team of psychologists found in a study that “young people are more likely to misbehave and take risks when their friends are watching” (Source E 1). This study consisted of a “six minute driving game” and they had to reach the destination before a certain time in order to receive an award. The only thing keeping the players from reaching their destination was yellow traffic lights. If they went too slow they would not reach the destination in the time given, if they went too fast then there was a “higher risk of crashing” (Source E 1). Peer pressure takes a role in this because when told that two friends “were watching the play in the next room” the teenagers had “60 percent more crashes” (Source E 1). This is an example of unintentional peer pressure because that friends group had the influence to make the teenager speed in the game. This also exemplifies the act of conforming because the teenagers raced through the light in order to reach the destination faster and receive a “bigger prize” and look cool to their friends (Source E 1). Peer pressure is detrimental to society because if teenager were to get behind the wheel

A school is a place that is comprised of a diversity of students. This is what makes a school so extraordinary; children of all different interests and personalities come together to learn. Though, there are many for factors that establish a school other than academics and learning. So many schools have a ranking system, where students are constantly racing to become more and more popular. There is an athletic group of students, the intelligent group, the band group, the gossip group, and many more. People feel as if they need to change themselves just to fit in. Imagine a student walking into school, changing the way they act, the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the friends they make, all in attempt for popularity. The sad truth is that these students will do anything to fit in, including drugs, smoking, or anything that affects them negatively. It is like a seperation between students based

I remember back in fifth grade when we were taught almost every day to say “no” to peer pressure. The idea of saying “no” seemed liked the easiest thing to accomplish back then, but as I grew older, I realized nothing is as easy as it seems. I was at that age where life changing decisions were to be made. It was that time of the year when students in 8th grade pondered upon themselves deciding on different high schools to spend four years in.

There are various cause and effects of peer pressure. Peer pressure is pressure or influence from a person’s peers. Peers are often described people of the same age group or social group. Peers will feel the need to be in control and will often surround themselves with weak-minded or people with low self-esteem to have the do their bidding. The causes of peer pressure include the need to fit in, low self-esteem, fear of rejection, and at most time the need to feel safety and security from peers. The effects of peer pressure can be negative and also have the worst outcomes.

“Contemporary American society pulls teenagers away from school toward social and recreational pursuits. There is widespread peer pressure not to succeed academically. One of five students say that their friends make fun of people who try to do well in school. More than one-half of all students say they never discuss their schoolwork with friends.”