The Meaning of Meanness: Popularity, Competition, and Conflict among Junior High School Girls

Abstract

The dirty dozen was the name used by several teachers to refer to a clique of junior high school girls who were both mean and popular. In this school, the students used the term mean as a largely undifferentiated characterization for acts of commission and omission whose intent, or result, was to hurt someone emotionally. This article proposes that exploring the meaning of meanness is a starting point for understanding the connections between female competition, conflict and popularity. An examination of these connections in the context of a clique of popular girls allows for a better understanding of the sociocultural construction of meanness in junior high school