Conformity and Resistance in Self-Management Strategies of `Good Girls'

Abstract

This article examines how girls manage challenging encounters with non-familial adults. Drawing on a subset of qualitative data collected as part of a larger ethnographic study, it examines the ways girls maintain a strong sense of self as a good person in the face of interpersonal challenge from these non-familial adults. The discourse of the `good girl' allows them to resist excessive demands of adults and provides opportunities to have fun. The importance of the parent—child relationship in terms of providing a safe context from which the girls can generate the good and bad girl facades is also highlighted.