Andrew Hacker

MUSED 353
Dr. Gerrity
April 28, 2016
Adolescents and Peer Pressure
Throughout my time at Northside Middle School, I was able to experience
firsthand all of the different mannerisms of a typical middle school student.
From these observations during both the observation as well as teaching
periods I was able to see some of the different issues that gripped the
students during their class. One of the most prevalent that I was able to
notice was the grip that peer pressure had on most of these students. In this
essay will cover this issue both in the class that I observed as well as others
across the nation.
According to Jeffrey T. Lashbrook, peer pressure is a specific instance
of social influence, which typically produces conformity to a particular was of
acting or thinking. (Lashbrook, pg. 2) One of the first things that I was able
to see during my time at the middle school was how quiet that these
students could be during class. On the first day of observations we were
introduced to the students and this was a rather interesting experience to
say the least. As most seasoned teachers would expect; the students would
introduce themselves in a very shy manner as to prevent themselves from

getting embarrassed in front of their peers. This is the first example of peer
pressure that we see with these students and with others. It is usually at this
point in time that students become more self-conscious of their actions as
well as what they are doing in front of their other peers. This causes the
reaction mentioned previously. It seems that for most students, especially at
this age, they are trying to find themselves in a way that causes them to stay
introverted around their peers which can lead to the hindrance of your class
productivity.
So what are some things that we, as music educators, can do for our
shy students in their secondary general music class? Obviously we must
follow the national standards set in place already, but there are also some
strategies that we can use in order to make our students more confident.
One of the biggest things that we can do as educators is to be personable in
the class. Ideally, with some other factors involved, this will help the
students to come out of their shells because we can be one of the people
that they do not want to mess up around. In one of my experiences working
with the students on their ukulele playing at the middle school there was a
boy [John] who would not answer my questions or let me hear his progress.
This was because he did not want to sound wrong in front of me or the other
students around him (most of these students were also a few songs ahead of
him in the book). In an article titled Age Differences in Resistance to Peer
Pressure by Laurence Steinberg and Kathryn C. Monahan, they state that this
is because students undergo remodeling around the time of puberty that

conceivably could lead to an increase in adolescents awareness of and

attentiveness to the opinions of their peers. (Stienburg and Monahan, pg. 1)
This article continues to talk about how, at this point in the students lives,
they are usually the most susceptible to their peers than any other age
because of puberty and the desire to become more like an adult.
One of the largest obstacles that secondary music educator will have in
their class is the cat that there will be a lot of singing that their students will
not be comfortable doing around each other. In one of my teaching instances
this exact problem occurred. My group and I had decided to have a lesson
structured around the song Let It Go from the movie Frozen. As many
might assume already, there were only two ways that this lesson was going
to work. The first would involve the students being 100% invested and
excited to sing one of Disneys greatest hits. Or, the exact opposite would
happen. When one of the girls in the class by the name of [Sally] said I hate
Disney! All of that Disney stuff is for kids! my group became very aware of
how the class was going to go. An analogy that I would use for this
experience would be like pulling teeth. The largest issue was that we
believed that this song would cater to our female part of the class and we
would get a lot of participation from that side of the class; however, due to
[sallys] reaction, none of the students would participate openly. However, in
my previous solo teachings, I had the exact opposite experience. This was
mostly due to the engagement of one of the stronger personalities in the
room named [Jacob] instantly taking a liking to my song choice (The Eye of

the Tiger). This was actually a very gratifying experience because of the fact
that, according to Mark Lucas article Adolescent Males Attitudes About
singing in Choir, Adolescent boys sometimes struggle with the difficulty of
continuing to sing while dealing with a changing voice, and perceived
pressures from peers who may or may not believe participating in choir is
"cool". (Lucas, pg. 1) I was very thankful that this was not the case when I
gave my due to the fact that I was able to engage the students at the
beginning as well as pick a fun and well-known song for them to sing along
to. This made it easier for the students to participate in my lesson.
Another issue that I felt was a large part of the class issues was the
fact that a lot of the students did not know each other on a personal
standing. This continued to make things difficult for both myself and the
other student teachers in the class because the students did not work well
with each other. I believe that if the students were to get to know each other
better there would not be some much of an issue with participation. A good
strategy to achieve this would be to have them work together during specific
segment of the lesson or to have them pair off into groups of two so that
they would get to know one another. Again, we as educators have to keep in
mind that these students are working to discover themselves and try not to
embarrass themselves in the process. The best we can do is make an open
environment for the students to explore their talents in music.

Works Cited
-Lashbrook, Jeffrey T. "Fitting In: Exploring The Emotional Dimension Of
Adolescent Peer Pressure." Adolescence 35.140 (2000): 747-57. ERIC. Web.
28 Apr. 2016.
-Lucas, Mark. "Adolescent Male Attitudes About Singing In Choir."Update:
Applications Of Research In Music Education 30.1 (2011): 46-53. ERIC. Web.
28 Apr. 2016.
-Martinek, Tom, Tammy Schilling, and Don Hellison. "The Development Of
Compassionate And Caring Leadership Among Adolescents." Physical

Education And Sport Pedagogy 11.2 (2006): 141-157. ERIC. Web. 28 Apr.
2016.
-Steinberg, Laurence, and Kathryn C. Monahan. "Age Differences In
Resistance To Peer Influence." Developmental Psychology 43.6 (2007): 15311543. ERIC. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.
-Ungar, Michael T. "The Myth Of Peer Pressure." Adolescence35.137 (2000):
167-80. ERIC. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.