It's important to be nice, but it's nicer to be important: girls, popularity and sexual competition

Abstract

A multi‐method project was conducted in a Local Education Authority (LEA) in the north of England. The relationships between girls' friendships, bullying, school attendance and transfer were explored through documentary analysis, LEA school admission statistics, group interviews and q‐sort technique. This paper reports selectively on those elements of the study that focussed on girls' popularity in high school. The qualitative data indicated that these girls thought their relationships altered once they settled in at secondary school, changing from an intimate dyadic same‐sex friendship to a more fluid and strategic set of relationships set within a context of heteronormativity. The participants in the study expressed great interest in discussing and analysing personality and relationships through the research activities, and the author suggests such techniques might be valuable to explore these issues in regular Sex and Relationship Education lessons.