Burnout as Cheerleader: The Cultural Basis for Prestige and Privilege in Junior High School

Abstract

The relationship between status categories and extracurricular activities is examined by considering an incident that produces a situation of status incon-gruity. In a suburban middle-class junior high school there is an important assumed congruence between the prestige of an individual's status category and the extracurricular activities in which she or he participates. When this tacit cultural assumption is violated in the selection of cheerleaders, students cast aspersions on their cheerleaders and thereby threaten the latter's social and personal identities. This article seeks to delineate the cultural meanings that provide the symbolic glue between status category and activity and make their incongruity so threatening. Put another way, the article examines the role that the assumed congruence between categories and activities plays in reproducing the basis for prestige and privilege in mainstream American society.