Reference Information
Title: Coming of Age in Samoa
Author: Margaret Mead
Editors: Williams Morrow and Company (1928)
Chapter 5: The Girl and Her Age Group (15 Pages)
Summary
In this chapter Mead describes the different groups of friends a girl identifies with as she grows up. Early in life most of a Samoan girl's friendships come from the family. When she gets to be around 7, a girl starts to make friends outside of her family which mainly consist of neighborhood groups. A girl doesn't make intense friendships at this age. When a girl reaches 16 or so, her group of friends tends to get a bit smaller. Early on, proximity dictated her friendships; not at this age however. She gave a few examples of girls that interacted slightly differently from these groups. One girl, Vina, always followed a group of older girls around and was hence the "little girl".
Mead also discusses the groups of friends that boys make. Young boys act similarly to young girls, but older boys tend to band together, similar to their early friendships.
Discussion
The social grouping in Samoa seems very different from that of the U.S. I feel like a lot of the friends that I made when I was 6-7 I remained friends with today. It might have to do with the fact that we see each other every day for the next 10 years or so in school.
In this chapter Mead describes the different groups of friends a girl identifies with as she grows up. Early in life most of a Samoan girl's friendships come from the family. When she gets to be around 7, a girl starts to make friends outside of her family which mainly consist of neighborhood groups. A girl doesn't make intense friendships at this age. When a girl reaches 16 or so, her group of friends tends to get a bit smaller. Early on, proximity dictated her friendships; not at this age however. She gave a few examples of girls that interacted slightly differently from these groups. One girl, Vina, always followed a group of older girls around and was hence the "little girl".
Mead also discusses the groups of friends that boys make. Young boys act similarly to young girls, but older boys tend to band together, similar to their early friendships.
Discussion
The social grouping in Samoa seems very different from that of the U.S. I feel like a lot of the friends that I made when I was 6-7 I remained friends with today. It might have to do with the fact that we see each other every day for the next 10 years or so in school.
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