The Meaning of Meanness
Introduction
In a very basic preliminary Sociology module in secondary school; as our group began to look at the broad topic of social behaviour, our instructor felt that viewing the popular American film “Mean Girls” would be an excellent way for us as students to start to understand the examples of how social interaction affects our day-to-day lives. Adapted from the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabees, (Bradford 2004) which is a guide for parents with adolescent daughters that is based around the life experiences of author Rosalind Wiseman, (Winfrey 2007) Mean Girls highlights many of the same sociological principles that are seen in The Meaning of Meanness: Popularity, Competition, and Conflict among Junior High School Girls by Don E. Merten. The film depicts a clique of four popular females, who rule the social world that exists in their American high school, much like the “dirty dozen” (Merten 1997, p.p. 175) do in their American junior high school. As is evident in the previously discussed works; in recent years, both writers and viewers alike have taken an interest in the phenomenon of “mean girls.” (Chesney-Lind and Irwin 2002) As a group, our module very basically discussed and analyzed the examples of Sociology in the film and compared them to the similar examples we were seeing in the high school we were attending at the time.
Unlike the limited examination of the fictional characters in Mean Girls that took place in my secondary school module, the methods of data collection and analysis used by the scholars that were involved in the research described in “Methods and Conflicts” (Merten 1997, p.p. 177) and the following sections that make up the majority of Merten’s work are most appropriate to the principle characteristics of the theoretical framework of interactionism. The examination of small-scale interactions combined with the use of ethnographic research show a definite interaction theory approach to the study.
Evidence of an interaction
In a very basic preliminary Sociology module in secondary school; as our group began to look at the broad topic of social behaviour, our instructor felt that viewing the popular American film “Mean Girls” would be an excellent way for us as students to start to understand the examples of how social interaction affects our day-to-day lives. Adapted from the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabees, (Bradford 2004) which is a guide for parents with adolescent daughters that is based around the life experiences of author Rosalind Wiseman, (Winfrey 2007) Mean Girls highlights many of the same sociological principles that are seen in The Meaning of Meanness: Popularity, Competition, and Conflict among Junior High School Girls by Don E. Merten. The film depicts a clique of four popular females, who rule the social world that exists in their American high school, much like the “dirty dozen” (Merten 1997, p.p. 175) do in their American junior high school. As is evident in the previously discussed works; in recent years, both writers and viewers alike have taken an interest in the phenomenon of “mean girls.” (Chesney-Lind and Irwin 2002) As a group, our module very basically discussed and analyzed the examples of Sociology in the film and compared them to the similar examples we were seeing in the high school we were attending at the time.
Unlike the limited examination of the fictional characters in Mean Girls that took place in my secondary school module, the methods of data collection and analysis used by the scholars that were involved in the research described in “Methods and Conflicts” (Merten 1997, p.p. 177) and the following sections that make up the majority of Merten’s work are most appropriate to the principle characteristics of the theoretical framework of interactionism. The examination of small-scale interactions combined with the use of ethnographic research show a definite interaction theory approach to the study.
Evidence of an interaction
Bibliography: Bradford, T. (2004) DVD Times review: ‘Mean Girls’ [online], available: www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=11362 [accessed Dec 2, 2007]. Bryman, A. (2001) Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chesney-Lind, M. and Irwin, K. (2002) ‘Beyond Bad Girls: Gender, Power, and Meanness.’ University of Hawaii, Manoa Sociology Department: Crime, law and deviance [online], available: www.sociology.hawaii.edu/research/crime.htm [accessed Dec 2, 2007]. Fulcher, J. and Scott, J. (2007) Sociology, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press. Merten, D. (1997) ‘The Meaning of Meanness: Popularity, Competition, and Conflict among Junior High School Girls.’ Ball State University Sociology of Education, Vol. 70, No. 3, p.p. 175-191. Macionis, J. J. and Plummer, K. (2005) Sociology: A Global Introduction, 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson. Marshall, G. and Scott, J. (2005) Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Winfrey, O. (2003) Oprah, The Oprah Winfrey Show: Make the Connection, Oprah 's Book Club [online], available: http://www.oprah.com/tows/booksseen/200305/tows_book_20030527_rwiseman.jhtml [accessed Dec 2, 2007].