What makes a girl (or a boy) popular (or unpopular)? African American children's perceptions and developmental differences.

Abstract

Open-ended questions were used to obtain narrative accounts of what makes a girl (or a boy) popular (or unpopular) at school. The participants were 489 African American students in Grades 1, 4, and 7 recruited from high-risk inner-city neighborhoods. Appearance and self-presentation were mentioned the most in Grades 4 and 7. Prosocial characteristics were especially relevant for popularity in Grade 1, as were studentship in Grade 4 and peer affiliations in Grade 7. Deviant behaviors were nominated for popularity more frequently in Grade 7 than in the younger grades and more for boys' popularity than for girls'. The mean deviance scores were negative in all grade levels, suggesting a normative peer culture. Male groups in Grade 7 showed significant homophily in reports of deviant behaviors.

Social Status Among Peers: From Sociometric Attraction to Peer Acceptance to Perceived Popularity

“…Considering the relative stability of sociometric versus perceived popularity (Wu, Hart, Draper, & Olsen, 2001 ), research to date shows greater stability for the latter, over both the short term (from fall grade 9 to spring grade 10; Schwartz et al, 2006 ), and the longer term (popular students from grades 5 to 12; Cillessen & Borch, 2006 ). Some researchers (Estell, 2007 ;Farmer, Estell, Bishop, O ' Neal, & Cairns, 2003 ;Rodkin & Berger, 2008 ;Rodkin, Farmer, Pearl, & Van Acker, 2000Ryan & Shim, 2008 ;Xie et al, 2006 ) assessed perceived popularity using teacher evaluations on the Interpersonal Competence Scale (ICS -T; Cairns, Leung, Gest, & Cairns, 1995 ). The Popularity subscale of the ICS -T includes three items, each rated on a 7 -point scale (e.g., from not popular to very popular with boys/girls , and from lots of friends to no friends ), and has demonstrated good internal consistency ( α = .70 to .91) (Estell, 2007 ;Farmer et al, 2003 ;Rodkin & Berger, 2008 ;Rodkin et al, 2006 ;Ryan & Shim, 2008 ;Xie et al, 2006 ).…”

Teacher attunement: Supporting early elementary students’ social integration and status

“…Although students who experience social preference and popularity tend to engage in more socially competent interactions with peers , studies suggest they are distinct constructs that are associated with divergent outcomes over the course of elementary school (Lease et al, 2002). Xie, Li, Boucher, Hutchins, and Cairns (2006) suggest social preference and popularity begin to diverge sometime between the 2 nd and 4 th grade. That is, who children like or with whom they prefer to play become less important to who students nominate as popular by the 4 th grade.…”

“…Given that students' centrality and status can differ for boys and girls and across grade levels, we assessed the relationship between both types of attunement and students' social centrality, social preference, and popularity after accounting for student gender and grade level (Gifford-Smith & Brownell, 2003;Rose, Glick, & Smith, 2011;Vu & Locke, 2014;Xie et al, 2006). We also included minority status as a covariate; research findings are inconsistent regarding the role of minority status in younger students' peer relationships, with little study of minority group differences among early elementary school children (Bellmore, Nishina, & Graham, 2011;Graham, Taylor, & Ho, 2009).…”

Trauma, Aggression and Object Relations in a Child and Adolescent Inpatient Sample

“…Some research findings point to a positive relationship between overt aggression and popularity among peers for minority youth (LaFontana and Cillessen 2002). However, more recent findings show that inner city African American children's perceptions of the link between a peer's aggression and popularity follows normative developmental patterns that resemble those of children from different ethnic backgrounds (Xie et al 2006). Research has also demonstrated that minority youth who are seen as aggressive are likely to be less socially preferred by peers (Waasdorp et al 2013).…”