Résumé :
|
This article challenges widely held assumptions about peer pressure to smoke during early adolescence. The detailed accounts of 36 eleven-year-olds and 40 thirteen year-olds in focus groups and in-depth interviews suggest that peer influence has different meanings for different groups of pupils which relate to peer group structure and peer group style. Coercive pressure to smoke in the form of bullying, teasing and threatened rejection from a desired group was reported by a small minority of low-status pupils. Many of the younger pupils, about to transfer to secondary school, and a few nonsmoking older pupils, expected to be bullied into smoking. Pupils at the top of the pecking order accepted responsibility for their own smoking behaviour while pupils in the'middle'groups reported that, in general, pressure to smoke was not an issue for them because they were not vulnerable to offers of cigarettes. These accounts confirm that young people's experiences of peer pressure to smoke are more complex, varied and subtle than is generally acknowledged in the literature. This needs to be taken into account when planning future health education programmes.
|