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Peer Power: Preadolescent Culture and Identity, by Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998. 272 pp. $48.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-8135-2459-8. $17.00 paper. ISBN: 0-8135-2460-1.
APRIL BRAYFIELD
Tulane University
[email protected]. tulane.edu
Why are some kids (un)popular? What are the consequences of (un)popularity? How do kids make friends? How does gender shape status, friendships, after-school activities, thoughts, and feelings of girls and boys during their pre-teen years? Peer Power tackles these complex issues and many other aspects of middle-class (and predominantly white) children's lives in an engaging way. This book complements two other books published by the same press-Barrie Thorne's Gender Play and Donna Elder's School Talk-and it presents rich empirical insights into the informal social organization and dynamics of a particular slice of North American childhood in the 1990s.
Some childhood scholars may be disappointed that the first five chapters are revised versions of prior articles by the Adlers; these chapters cover the themes of parent-as-researcher, popularity, clique dynamics, clique stratification, and after-school activities. For readers who are unfamiliar with the Adlers' earlier work,...