Characteristics of social identity in a high school educational group

The contribution presents the results of a research of peculiarities of social identity of a senior adolescent in an educational group. It discusses the question of interrelation between the social identity and the adolescent’s status in the group. 192 students of IX-X grades of Moscow general education schools, aged 15-17, participated in the research. A complex of socio-psychological methods was used: modified social identity questionnaire, sociometry, referentometry, method of identification of informal intragroup power structure in a contact community. The results of the research show statistically significant differences in the level of social identity of adolescents with different status. The article shows the peculiarities of social identity in adolescent educational group: the most important for the adolescents are the factors of emotional attitude toward the group, such as common pastime and positive self-esteem, as well as interpersonal interaction, while the least important factors are those which describe the influence of the group on its members - self-understanding, centrality.