Children want an identity and dinstinction from other groups ,for example in dress ,hair style and language. The members of the group mould their aspirations and actions to follow the fashions and hairstyles of their group. A child may become truant
and must have interests to play a truant behaviours in order to be accepted by the peer group. They form social groupings such as cliques and gangs which are in part a reflection of the community. These groupings are characterised by youth culture which distinct from community and even be in opposition to the adult world.(Banks:189)
Youth culture is youth based subculture which the functionalists perspective viewed as a distinct styles of behaviours and interests of the young people within a specific community group.
In language peer group adopt slang,swearing ,dirty jokes ,mischef ,in contempt for rules and those in authority, the breaking of home ties and shifting the loyalty to the peer group ,snobbishness and
discrimination against other gangs and groups of people ,to avoid peer disapproval.
In class work their , work is substandard far below their personal capacity to claim that school bores them as it bores their peers and they verbalise their boredom to convince others to follow their habits.
However there two distinguished groups of peer groups as categorised by Hargreaves(2005) as:
•The conformist academic subculture which is characterised by hardwork ,high standard of physical hygiens and dress , and only wants to do what is accepted and expected from them by the community. They encourage every member to submit to both parents and their teachers.In other words they subscribed to the dos and don'ts of the society and they spearhead the needs and demands of their commuinty.
•The rebellious delinquent subculture with nonconformist dress.Ties are taboo and long hair not well dressed ,both are against the home and school rules. They like fighting and truancy. The child even if is doing well in classroom ,the moment he/she joins the delinquescent subculture is likely to be academically retarded ,socially unacceptable and culturally isolate himself/herself from the rest of the society's norms and values.This is caused by acceptance of peer group which is totally against the society's way of life and resort to its norms and ideas internalised by members of the group into undesirable ,unwanted human beings. They are totally against the normal running of the social culture and developed their aggressive reasons for this cause. Retardation is caused by the sense of failure and frustraction. In frustraction they resort to violence ,theft and holiganism.The child loses interest in school work and hate teachers. The school work drastically deteriorates and they failed to find satisfaction in the community. Morrish (2000) argues that these children steal and resort to violence and hooliganism ,they are motivated more by a desire to strike at a society rather than acquire wealth. These children who feel rejected and frustrated develop resistance and tension against their parents ,teachers and adults in society. The only part of society they turn to is the peer group.Many of the youngsters who become delinquents do so because of frustration ,stress and boredom. They are generally the non-academic children . Poverty doesn't seem to play a major part in causing retardation. Retardation seems to be caused by an increasing spirit of rebellion against society ,of lawlessness as a result of limited aims with a limited capacity for fulfilling the aims, and of boredom because of uncreative existence. The child becomes destructive inorder to get excitement. In the event of failure the underachiever feels a sense of inadequancy and fights to succeed by all means ,though the sense of success is one that society hates. The children who fall victim to the bad infuence of the peer group are looked down upon and are rejected. Peer group leaves delinquents ,most of whom could have been successful respectable citizens had the peer group been of good influence.
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