Links of interest:

• Information on trends in positive peer influence on academics from the Department of Health and Human Services.
• Guidance on peers for parents from the American Association of Pediatrics.
• What adolescents have to say about cliques and popularity.
• Peer pressure in the abstract is one thing. Peer pressure in real life takes on a whole different quality. Why do we act the way we do in groups? The June 4, 1999 episode of This American Life brings you four vignettes in which kids talk about why they did what they did. The third, and perhaps most poignant vignette from the point of view of this class, is called When We Were Animals.Here is how they describe it: "Since the high school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, parents and teachers are looking for warning signs that the children in their lives might suddenly strike out. But the dividing line between normal childhood aggression and social pathology can be hard tospot. Writer Paul Bravmann tells a story from his own boyhood in a west coast suburb about the difficulty of spotting that line."
• The Littleton shooting brought a lot of attention to how adolescents treat one another in school. Some of that attention has focused on the role of jocks in schools and how, in some schools, they are treated as an invulnerable elite. Gay adolescents are particularly vulnerable to harassment. The Blackboard, an on-line newsletter published by the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network, focuses on gay students and teachers in elementary and secondary schools. The on-line resource section provides good sources of information for students and educators. Take special note of their reference section, which includes research on violence, suicide, and the family. You might also be interested in an interview with two high school students talking about their own experiences and how they have responded to peer harrassment.
• As reported by the LA Times, many students can empathize with the Littleton shooters. The web seems to be a place for kids to blow off steam about mistreatment at school. If you start looking, you can find hundreds of places on the web where students complain of being harassed for being different in many different ways. The stories can range from the funny to the horrific. Some places to start looking are listed in the LA Times article.