It’s Lonely at the Top: Adolescent Students’ Peer-perceived Popularity and Self-perceived Social Contentment

“It’s Just the Thing You Do”: Physical and Digital Fields, and the Flow of Capital for Young People’s Gendered Identity Negotiation

“…Social status and popularity hold significance for young people (Ferguson & Ryan, 2019; Read et al, 2011; Wright, 2017). Therefore, the flow of capital between the fields of schooling and social media is a significant consideration for how young people manage and negotiate their identities.…”

“…For young people, popularity is accrued in digital spaces through “tagging,” which is translated physically to a higher status in school. Popularity is already highly significant for young people (Ferguson & Ryan, 2019; Metcalfe, 2018; Read et al, 2011; Wright, 2017), and social media reinforces this with its immediate feedback through “likes” and “followers.” Moreover, it is the focus on the image that results in particular attention being drawn to the body.…”

“…For young people, social capital in the form of social status and position is important for young people within their peer social networks (Holland, Reynolds, & Weller, 2007; Metcalfe, 2018; Putnam, 1995). Young people often place emphasis on social status and popularity (Ferguson & Ryan, 2019; Read, Francis, & Skelton, 2011), and the accumulation of social capital through indicators of popularity (e.g., social media “likes,” friends, position within the social hierarchy) demonstrates the utility of a Bourdieusian framework to explore how capital rewards legitimate gendered identities for young people in practice. Bourdieu’s concept of illusio helps to explain why capital is a useful method for exploring young people’s behaviors.…”

Adolescents' peer status profiles and differences in school engagement and loneliness trajectories: A person-centered approach

“…In line with these theories, a large body of research revealed that peer relationships are associated with students' academic and psychosocial development (Wentzel & Muenks, 2016). For instance, well-liked students are considered to be a relatively low-risk group for academic or psychosocial maladjustment compared to popular students (Cillessen & van den Berg, 2012;Ferguson & Ryan, 2019;North, Ryan, Cortina, & Brass, 2019;Pouwels et al, 2018;Prino, Pasta, Longobardi, Marengo, & Settanni, 2018;van den Berg et al, 2015).…”

Sociometric Popularity, Perceived Peer Support, and Self-Concept in Adolescence

“…Popularity could be defined as the order in which children and adolescents are classified in their respective peer groups, in accordance with a hierarchical criterion (Bukowski, 2011). The concept comprises two dimensions that are related to each other but at the same time are different (Ferguson and Ryan, 2019;van den Berg et al, 2020): sociometric popularity, or social preference (Andreou, 2006), which refers to the feeling of being loved and accepted by one's peers; and perceived popularity, which refers to prestige, visibility and dominance within the peer group (Cillessen and Marks, 2011;Cillessen and Van den Berg, 2012). The term social acceptance has often been used as a synonym of popularity, even though in reality it is simply a dimension of social selfconcept (Fernández-Zabala et al, 2016b), understood as the self-evaluation of the degree to which a person feels accepted and loved by the significant others in their life.…”