Encyclopedia of Adolescence

2011 Edition
| Editors: Roger J. R. Levesque

Cool Youth

Reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_454
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Overview

This essay discusses cool youth in terms of the developmental significance of peer social status and social categories in adolescence. First, material displays, styles, and behaviors correlated with coolness in adolescence are reviewed. Next, findings demonstrating the influence of cool youth on their peers and the mechanisms for this influence are discussed. The essay ends with a call to differentiate cool youth from popular youth and to use gender and ethnicity to inform our understanding of cool.

Introduction

A hallmark of adolescent peer relationships is their hierarchical structure (Cairns and Cairns 1991; Corsaro and Eder 1990; Rubin et al. 2006). Within any adolescent peer group, a select few attain positions at the top of the hierarchy, others are relegated to positions at the bottom of the hierarchy, and most everyone else falls somewhere in between. While peer status hierarchies are evident at younger ages, the period of adolescence is unique because of the extreme...

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Educational PsychologyUniversity of Wisconsin-MadisonMadisonUSA