REFERENCE GROUPS OF RURAL HIGH SCHOOL YOUTH1

The hypotheses of this paper are the ones long held in sociology that, in a pluralistic society such as our own, an individual is moved to rank the groups to which he belongs or which he otherwise knows about and that his attitudes and behavior reflect the dominant values of the top groups in this hierarchy more than those of the lower groups. Recently this concept of the highly-valued groups has been given the label groups, a term apparently used first by Herbert Hyman (i). This paper considers only those reference groups which are also membership groups (that is, groups to which the individuals studied themselves belong). The data consists of answers to questionnaires filled out by all students (except for those absent on the typical school day when the survey was taken) in four rural high schools, representing widely different areas in Minnesota. The questionnaires were administered in classrooms by an advanced graduate student at the University of Minnesota, who assured the subjects of anonymity and of the legitimate purposes of the study. The main question used to ascertain reference groups was In your life which is most important? and permitted checking of the following: (a) school chums; (b) (uncles, aunts and cousins); (c) social clubs; (d) work groups; (e) church groups; (f) immediate family (father, mother, brothers, sisters). Of the 582 students filling out the questionnaire, I8 provided no answer to this question and 54 gave more than one answer; both of these categories of individuals were excluded from the analysis. Only four students gave relatives as their reference group; the small