The purpose of this essay has been to make clear how adolescents understand the phenomenon of being popular among peers. Two questions were tried to be answered: What does it mean to be popular? How does one become popular? Ten adolescents from ages 13 to 18 were interviewed, and this makes the basis of this essay. Seven categories show the result. Social skills were found to be the most important characteristic. A popular adolescent were said to be outgoing, nice, pleasant, have a good sense of humor and also have a well developed feeling for how to behave in different social situations. The appearance did not matter, according to the interviewees. But the popular adolescents did dress in a way that corresponded to the majority of the peers. The body was not important at all. Most of adolescents were assumed to be neither more popular, nor less popular but instead right between these two conceptions – they were average popular. Popular adolescents had nothing in common, when it came to background. Achievements in school did not lead to popularity, but it was important to be well-informed about society, when to chat with peers. Generally, what leisure-time activities adolescents attended were said to have no affect on popularity. Finally, the interviewees thought almost everyone were aware of how popular he or she was, although they supposed that some adolescents could be more popular among peers, without being aware of it. All together, this could roughly be said to be the way for adolescents to become popular among peers, according to this essay: develop your social skills, keep an eye on how your peers dress and follow their fashion and, finally, be well-informed about society. You do not have to do well in school, but show that you are in control of school and marks.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hik-402 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Nilsson, David |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Kalmar, Humanvetenskapliga institutionen, Högskolan i Kalmar |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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