Abstract

MEJIA-HERNANDEZ, Juana María Guadalupe. From "Clown" to "Nice Boy": Some "Ways of Being a Teenager" among Males in Secondary School. RMIE [online]. 2015, vol.20, n.67, pp.1081-1104. ISSN 1405-6666.

In this article, I analyze four "ways of being a teenager" displayed by males in daily interaction at secondary school. These patterns were reported on repeated occasions by the interviewees themselves: the "clown", the "swine", the "book licker", and the "nice boy". Using a focus in cultural psychology, I followed the boys through interviews and participant observation in four public schools in Mexico City for one school year. I conclude that these "ways of being a teenager" are constructed with a foundation in play and violence and are tributaries of the construction of adolescent masculinity; each student is allowed to assume a particular positional identity within his group, in relation to his peers and to adults.

Keywords : teenagers; masculinity; identity; sociocultural focus; Mexico.

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