Avenues to prestige among adolescents in public and religiously affiliated high schools

Adolescence, Summer, 2004 by J. Jill Suitor, Rebecca S. Powers, Rachel Brown

These findings are particularly interesting in the context of the type of private schools the students in our study had attended, all of which were religiously based. From the perspective of parents and school officials alike, a major mission of schools of this type is to provide a better social environment--one in which there is greater emphasis on education and morality, and less emphasis on materialism and frivolous and potentially harmful pursuits, such as drinking, using drugs, partying, and engaging in sexual activity and aggressive behaviors.

Our results provided little support for our hypotheses regarding a more positive social climate in private versus public high schools, thus indicating substantial change from the patterns found in the 1960s and 1970s (cf. Bridgeman & Fox, 1978; Coleman & Hoffer, 1983; Coleman et al., 1982). The pattern of findings in our study was much closer to that of Valois and colleagues' (1997) study of South Carolina adolescents. However, the present study extends Valois et al.'s study by including students from states in two distinct regions of the country that have been shown to have different attitudes and behaviors (cf. Hurlbert, 1989; Hurlbert & Bankston, 1998; DiMaggio et al., 1996; Rice & Coates, 1995; Suitor, Mecom, Guerra, & Gusman, 2003; Weakliem & Biggert, 1999).

The findings on graduates of public schools and religiously based private schools are sufficiently counterintuitive to call for future study of private/public school differences in social climate and academic focus. In particular, future studies should collect data from students who are presently enrolled in school, and draw from the population of students enrolled in both private, secular high schools, as well as private, religiously based high schools. Future studies could also benefit by including demographic information on both the students and their parents, such as parents' educational attainment, income, ethnicity, and religious denomination.

Table 1
College Students' Reports of Mechanisms by Which
Girls and Boys Acquired Prestige in Their High Schools
(Shown in Percentages by High School Type)

                            Reported for Girls

Prestige                    Public   Private
Mechanism                   School   School      p

Grades/Intelligence          55.1     55.2     n.s.
Participation in Sports      53.8     46.8     n.s.
Physical Attractiveness      52.2     48.8     n.s.
General Sociability          48.3     50.8     n.s.
Popularity with Opposite     33.4     30.2     n.s.
Gender
Clothes                      33.1     19.0     .000
School Clubs/Government      26.0     32.7     n.s.
Cheerleading                 22.2     29.0     n.s.
Sexual Activity              11.2      9.7     n.s.
Car                           9.6      9.3     n.s.
Partying                      7.6      8.9     n.s.
Good Reputation/Virginity     5.3      6.9     n.s.
Using Drugs/Alcohol           5.5      4.8     n.s.
Class Clown/Sense of          3.8      5.6     n.s.
Humor
Fighting/Bullying             1.5      n.a.     --

                            Reported for Boys

Prestige                    Public   Private
Mechanism                   School   School      p

Grades/Intelligence          47.0     41.6     n.s.
Participation in Sports      87.5     87.2     n.s.
Physical Attractiveness      34.3     32.3     n.s.
General Sociability          39.3     48.7     0.28
Popularity with Opposite     32.7     37.2     n.s.
Gender
Clothes                      22.1     11.9     .000
School Clubs/Government      24.1     25.2     n.s.
Cheerleading                 n.a.      0.4      --
Sexual Activity              14.0     11.5     n.s.
Car                          24.9     20.8     .048
Partying                     11.1     12.6     n.s.
Good Reputation/Virginity     1.2      3.1     .086
Using Drugs/Alcohol          14.2     15.0     n.s.
Class Clown/Sense of         12.4     19.5     .004
Humor
Fighting/Bullying            11.0     11.5     n.s.

Note. n.a. = not applicable; n.s. = not significant at p < .10.

Some students attended single-gender high schools and
therefore could not report on the ways in which the
other gender accrued prestige in their schools. The
p-values indicate significant differences by high school
type, using logistic regression (for each
dependent variable), and controlling for region
(Southeastern versus Northeastern U.S.), size of community,
year of graduation, and gender of respondent.