How do peer groups impact elementary school life?
• Beginning in elementary school, peer pressure wields great power in children’s lives. Young children’s peer groups are rigidly segregated by a gender wall, with boys tending to form hierarchic societies and girls usually forming pairs of best friends. Those left out may develop adjustment problems and emotional difficulties. • Compared to children in the early 1980s, in the late 1990s, elementary children spent more time studying, playing sports, reading, in day care, in school, and involved in personal care, while spending less time watching television, enjoying leisure time, or in religious activities.
