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In sociometric research tradition, popularity is defined as the degree to which children are liked or accepted by their peers. However, research indicates that two definitions of popular students should be distinguished: (1) popular students as those students who are well liked by many and disliked by few peers, and (2) popular students as those students who are described as popular by their peers. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between sociometric and peer perceived popularity in Slovenian students of different grades of elementary and secondary school. Additionally, the age differences in the relationship between sociometric and peer perceived popularity were examined. Another purpose of the study was to investigate the differential relationships between concepts of popularity and some students' characteristics. The participants were 321 boys and 329 girls who ranged from the 5th grade of elementary school (the mean age 11.04 years) to the 3rd grade of secondary school (the mean age 17.02 years). The results of this study confirm previous findings that peer perceived popularity is a construct that is distinct from sociometric popularity. There are some substantial differences in relations between indices of perceived popularity and sociometric indices between elementary school students and secondary school students-i.e. between early adolescents and middle to late adolescents. It seems that perceived popularity and sociometric popularity are rather similar constructs in elementary school students, whereas in secondary school students they become almost unrelated to each other. Based on these findings, the terminological issues are discussed and some conclusions are made.

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The positive relationship between popularity goals and bullying in early adolescence is documented in many studies. The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between student social goals of two types (popularity and social preference) and bullying in a diverse sample of early and middle adolescents. Additionally, we aimed to investigate both individual (self‐perceived popularity and social status insecurity) and classroom‐level (the classroom variability in self‐perceived popularity) moderators of the relationship between popularity goals and bullying. A total of 2039 students (59.48% girls; mean age 15.48 years) nested within 106 classrooms participated in the study. Using a cross‐sectional research design, we found that popularity goals were a positive predictor of bullying, while social preference goals were a negative predictor. Self‐perceived popularity and social status insecurity were found to moderate the relationship between popularity goals and bullying; higher levels of bullying were reported by students with high popularity goals and high self‐perceived popularity or high social status insecurity. In addition, popularity goals were a stronger predictor of bullying for students in classrooms with higher classroom variability in self‐perceived popularity.