‘Popular’ Kids Aren’t That Special
They do play a role in setting a school’s norms—but kids’ parents and close friends have more sway.
In school, “popularity” is a slippery concept, with kids falling in and out of it for no apparent reason. The hierarchies of middle and high school can be as mystifying years later as they were at the time.
But researchers have been studying “popularity” in a systematic way for a while now, and one question they’ve dug into is to what degree the actions and customs of kids considered to be popular dictate what everyone else does. In other words, how much is the rest of the school trying to be like the popular kids?
