The Meaning of Meanness:
Popularity, Competition, and Conflict
among Junior High School Girls
Don E. Merten
Ball State University

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 undifferentia­
ted 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.

he sociocultural construction of meanness was a byproduct of compe­
meanness among a clique of pop­ tition and conflict, but at other times,
ular girls in junior high school is girls used meanness instrumentally to
the focal point of this article. The term
gain a competitive advantage in pursuit
sociocultural is used here to designate or protection of popularity. Yet it was
the interplay of social and cultural phe­ not obvious why being mean seemed
nomena in the construction of mean­ reasonable to these girls—much less
ness (Berger and Luckmann 1967; why they took meanness to the point of
Geertz 1973; Searle 1995). In the con­ being considered the meanest girls in
text of the research presented here, the school.
construction was explored primarily by
examining how the social relationships,
PREVIOUS RESEARCH
and their meanings, of junior high
The nature of competition and con­
school girls were shaped by the broader
contours of mainstream American cul­ flict among females has drawn the
ture. Therefore, it considered how attention of some investigators because
meanness acquired meaning through it was suspected that girls were not suf­
(1) its relationship to other related con­ ficiently competitive to prepare them
cepts, such as “niceness”; (2) the mean­ for successful careers (Lever 1976).
ing of competition and conflict for girls; Early research on. female competition
and (3) the tension between hierarchy compared it, often implicitly, to male
and equality. Thus, the construction of forms of competition (Lever 1976) and
meanness involved both social interac­ generally found that females were less
tion and cultural meaning—the latter competitive (Gilligan 1982; Goodwin
1980). For example, Miller, Danaher,
often tacit.
For the clique of popular girls whose and Forbes (1986:544) found that fe­
actions are the focus of this article, males could be expected to “use tactics
meanness became an essential feature that diffuse conflict or otherwise try
of their competition for, and conflict and maintain interpersonal harmony in
over, popularity. The relationship the face of conflict.” Moreover, Lever
among competition, conflict, and mean­ (1976) suggested that girls were
ness was far from simple. Sometimes, sufficiently concerned that competition

T

176

would lead to conflict that they would
abandon their game, rather than become
embroiled in conflict. This was espe­
cially the case when the competition or
conflict occurred in an intimate group
(Gilligan 1982). These avoidance pat­
terns were shaped by tacit cultural
understandings that discouraged open
competition among females (Becker
1987; Longino and Miner 1987). More
recently, however, female competition
has come to be understood neither as a
lesser version of male competition nor
as something girls invariably avoid but,
rather, as competition that is different
in its process and meaning (Hughes
1988).
This alternative perspective on com­
petition among girls is represented by
Hughes’s (1988) description of the
social construction of “meanness,”
“niceness,” and “nice-mean” in the
game of Foursquare. Girls competed in a
manner that took into account their
social relationships, especially their
commitment to their friends. Whereas a
player who was removed from the
game, as an “out,” may have felt that she
was being treated meanly, the person
getting her out could mitigate this expe­
rience by suggesting that she was sorry
or could not avoid getting her out. In
such instances, it was not “really mean”
to get someone out, especially when
doing so was necessary to get, or keep,
one’s friends in the game. Even though
the rules of the game constrained a play­
er’s options, they did not, as Hughes
pointed out, dictate the meaning of cer­
tain actions. The meanings were con­
structed and negotiated in the local con­
text, especially by mediating “mean”
versus “nice” with the idea of “nicemean.”
The situation described in the pre­
sent article is both similar to and differ­
ent from the game situation described
by Hughes (1988). An obvious similari­
ty is that members of the clique were
competing to become or to remain pop­
ular. Competition for popularity was a
nearly ubiquitous concern for these
junior high school girls. In addition,
like the situation Hughes (1983) de­
scribed, the competitive process was

Merten

inextricably linked to relationships
with peers insofar as friends entered
competition for popularity as both
rivals and supporters. However, there
were also important differences
between this study and Hughes’s. For
one, what members of the clique were
competing for, popularity, was less
objectified than the outcomes of a game
and more encompassing with regard to
their sense of self. Moreover, the mem­
bers were not competing in a game with
clearly defined (though variable) rules
and procedures. One can ask whether
the need to mediate nongame competi­
tion was as compelling as for games or
whether nongame situations forced girls
to compete even more covertly because
of the “taboo” on overt competition
(Tracy 1991). In other words, were girls
discouraged from acknowledging their
competition even when competition for
popularity was pervasive (Longino and
Miner 1987)?
In a similar vein, Sheldon (1992)
described linguistic means that girls
used to mediate conflict. Sheldon’s
framework distinguished between
“double-voiced” and “single-voiced”
discourse. The former was found to
occur in solidarity-based groups as indi­
viduals tried to have their way in a con­
flict situation without promoting inter­
personal disharmony. Hence, double­
voiced discourse both pressed an indi­
vidual’s interests and took the other
person into account in doing so, thereby
preserving interpersonal ties in conflict
situations. In short, Sheldon (1992) and
Hughes (1983, 1988) both described
how girls managed to dull the interper­
sonal sharp edges of their actions by
mediating competition or conflict.1
To fail to mediate competition and
conflict, as members of the clique often
did, was perceived as taking an overtly
aggressive stance toward interaction
with peers. Because female competi­
tion-conflict that was not mediated was
considered mean, one might expect that
girls who aggressively pursued it would
be considered not only mean but
unpopular. That this was not the case
with the girls in this clique has already
been noted, but these girls were not

The Meaning of Meanness

unique in this regard. McGuire (1973)
found that aggressive girls tended to be
popular, rather than unpopular, and
Viemero (1992) argued that girls had to
be aggressive to be popular. Adler,
Kless, and Adler (1992) also described
instances in which the mean actions of
popular girls were noted by their peers.
Yet why the relationship between
meanness and popularity exists is
unclear. To understand why girls
engaged in unmediated competition­
conflict that made them seem aggressive
and mean, it is necessary to consider
both the group dynamics (Healy and
Bell 1990; Rabbie, Goldenbeld, and
Lodewijkx 1992) and the larger
sociocultural themes of the community
and junior high school in which mean­
ness occurred.2
The task of the research was to exam­
ine the sociocultural construction of
meanness, particularly how competi­
tion for popularity led junior high
school girls to be openly mean. The
meaning of meanness was not merely
its definition but, rather, the combi­
nation of social and cultural factors that
led girls to undertake certain actions
that their peers identified as mean.
Girls’ accounts of meanness conveyed
how they experienced it and included
both explicit reasons why people were
mean and allusions to unstated reasons
for meanness. Therefore, they provided
an opening to the meanings of mean­
ness in this junior high school clique.
The sociocultural construction of mean­
ness, from the perspective taken here,
was interrelated with the construction
of popularity, the transformability of
popularity into power, and the feelings
of invulnerability and vulnerability that
accompanied high levels of popularity.
Yet one must also consider the broader
context in which meanness occurred.
For example, where were the adults
when all this was going on: How did
teachers and parents respond to the
inordinate meanness of the clique?
Moreover, was there something about
this community or school culture that
allowed or even encouraged meanness?

177
METHOD AND CONTEXT

The data for this article are from a
three-year longitudinal study of junior
high school students. The first year was
spent observing and interviewing stu­
dents in the junior high school. Data
from the initial observations and inter­
views (precohort) were used to orient
research for the study of the student
cohort that entered junior high school
the following year. All students who
wanted to participate and who had
signed informed-consent letters (270
students, 127 boys and 143 girls, 80 per­
cent of the eligible students) formed the
study cohort. During the seventh and
eighth grades, two school ethnographers
observed and interviewed the cohort
students at school. A third ethnograph­
er interviewed the parents and adults in
the community.
These three female ethnographers
received intensive training in interview­
ing and observational techniques. They
were supervised weekly by two senior
ethnographers, one of whom was this
author. The two school ethnographers
had access to classrooms, halls, the
lunchroom, activities, and school
events. They interviewed students in a
small room designated for that purpose.
The interviews were audiotaped and
later transcribed, as were the observa­
tional notes. The questions students
were asked sought to elicit how they
perceived and experienced their world.
Most students were interviewed several
times and some as many as a dozen
times.
The community in which the junior
high school was located was a middleto upper-middle-class suburb that was
overwhelmingly White but was
ethnically relatively diverse. It was a
community with a heavy emphasis on
mobility, both geographic and econom­
ic. The adults in the community were
also aware that it was not getting any
easier to succeed and that children
would have to work hard to do as well
as their parents—much less surpass
them. Community and family resources
were expended to create an educational
and activity environment that provided

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Bourdieu, Pierre, 1977. “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction." Pp. 487-511 in Power and
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