Peers And Idols

As a transitional need in the adolescence, teenager's idolatry is a kind of behavior with comprehensive characteristics, and a special form of social,cultural and moral elements reflected on the teenager's psyche and behaviors. The peer group is an essential and inevitable mechanism that exerts great influences on the growth of teenagers. From the perspective of microscopic theory in sociology, this research employs the statistical analysis of eight indexes including types, reasons, contributions and influences of teenager's idolatry by investigating boarders and day students in middle school as two parts of a small group, and tries to reveal the relative quantifiable features of idol choices among the peer groups of boarders and day students in middle school. And based on it,combined with materials collected from talks, the research dissects the intrinsic relations behind all these independent data by means of Corinth's theory of interaction ritual chains and group socialization theory. Some findings can be concluded as follows when the interaction of peer groups is studied:there are great differences between the two groups of boarders and day students involving the aspects of topics, frequency, initatives and satisfaction. Beside, as is showed in the talks, the peer group interaction quality of boarders is higher and the peer group of boarders have a larger influence on idolatry, compared to that of day students. Thus as a socialized mechanism, how peer groups affect the teenager's idolatry? What's the pattern and way of the communication among peer groups? Does a boarding school facilitate the ritual interaction between the members within the peer group? Compared with day students, is there any specific content or pattern in the peer group interaction of boarders? Is there any obvious differences concerning the interactional features compared to the peer group of day students? What aspects of idolatry are under the influence of peer groups? How idols influence teenagers and how correct instructions are conducted? The above questions incorporate itself into the major objectives of the research. Starting from the perspective of peer groups, the research probes into the interaction mechanism of peer groups on the teenager's idolatry. What's more, the research tries to give some suggestions on the teenager's idolatry from the perspective of peer groups, and find an effective and practical way to make teenager peer groups play a constructive role. Especially when the education system of boarding school is widespread currently, the great power of peer groups on the socialization of middle school students is brought into the full play, forming an effective supplement to the limited influence of the big society. Also, correct instructions on teenager's idolatry is helpful for the idolatry education on teenagers and better promote all-round development of middle school students in the adolescence.This research employs the relevant theories of peer groups to explain the data collected from the experiments and summarize its changing characteristics, which also provides experimental data for the studies on teenager's idolatry under the influence of peer groups, and functions as a significant complement to the practice as well. Meanwhile, the research can provide important basis and reference for parents to guide peer interactions among teenagers and their idol choices. Through an analysis of the data collected, the understandings and communications between students and parents can be further improved. This research not only contributes to the improvement of active peer interactions among students and their idol choices, but provides valuable suggestions on education management especially for those boarding schools.