TY - JOUR
T1 - 'When you see a normal person...'
T2 - Social class and friendship networks among teenage students
AU - Papapolydorou, Maria
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - This paper draws on social capital theory to discuss the way social class plays out in the friendships of teenage students. Based on data from individual interviews and focus groups with 75 students in four London secondary schools, it is suggested that students tend to form friendships with people who belong to the same social-class background as them. Social-class 'sameness' is considered to be an element that importantly exemplifies the quality of their friendships, and hence close, inter-class friendships were significantly less common than close, intra-class ones. In addition, class differentials were evident and often reproduced by students, even in the context of the rarer inter-class friendships. This paper concludes that social class is of continuous importance in teenagers' lives and despite some agentic negotiation of class boundaries, as in the case of omnivorousness, students' friendship networks are dynamically informed by class inequalities.
AB - This paper draws on social capital theory to discuss the way social class plays out in the friendships of teenage students. Based on data from individual interviews and focus groups with 75 students in four London secondary schools, it is suggested that students tend to form friendships with people who belong to the same social-class background as them. Social-class 'sameness' is considered to be an element that importantly exemplifies the quality of their friendships, and hence close, inter-class friendships were significantly less common than close, intra-class ones. In addition, class differentials were evident and often reproduced by students, even in the context of the rarer inter-class friendships. This paper concludes that social class is of continuous importance in teenagers' lives and despite some agentic negotiation of class boundaries, as in the case of omnivorousness, students' friendship networks are dynamically informed by class inequalities.
KW - Bourdieu
KW - friendships
KW - omnivorousness
KW - social capital
KW - social class
KW - social networks
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84902830282&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/01425692.2013.782811
DO - 10.1080/01425692.2013.782811
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84902830282
SN - 0142-5692
VL - 35
SP - 559
EP - 577
JO - British Journal of Sociology of Education
JF - British Journal of Sociology of Education
IS - 4
ER -