What teachers need to know about peer influence, with Professor Brett Laursen

If you want good behaviour in every secondary classroom, the current mantra suggests that creating whole school norms - rigorously enforced through routine, rules and modelling - is the best way of going about it. But how realistic is it that a school can enforce a norm upon a diverse and friendship-seeking group of teens? “Well, it is a realistic starting point,” says Brett Laursen, professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University, and editor in chief of the International Journal of Behavioural Development.In this podcast, he talks about the complexity of peer influence and the ways it can and cannot be used to manage behaviour in schools.