The present study surveyed 644 (337 males, 306 females) high school students and found that social groups that were disidentified from schools, when compared to identified groups; (a) were perceived to be more distinctive, (b) were more sensitive to the number of competing outgroups, (c) had more closed and cohesive group structures, (d) were perceived to have more homogeneous memberships, and (e) were perceived to be more likely to enact behavioral sanctions against members who strayed from internal group norms. While members of school-identified groups had better self-esteem on average than members of disidentified (at-risk) groups, members of disidentified groups who felt closely connected to their groups had better self-esteem than those who felt more loosely associated, and, such disidentified group members had self-esteem comparable to even identified group members. The results of the present study suggest that the dominant individualistic paradigm fails to satisfactorily explain, or address the needs of socially connected at-risk students who rely on their anti-normative groups to buoy their self-esteem and define their identities.

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