Football, fast cars, and cheerleading: adolescent gender norms, 1978-1989

This paper examines changes in adolescent gender norms in the 1980s, using data collected from 496 college students who graduated from high school in 1979-82 (N = 271), and 1988-89 (N = 225). Each student was asked to list five ways in which male and female students could gain prestige in the high school from which they had recently graduated. The findings indicate relatively little change in gender norms across the decade. While there are some indications of less traditionalism-most importantly, an increase in girls' acquisition of prestige through sports, and a decrease in girls' acquisition of prestige through cheerleading-the overall pattern shows that boys and girls continue to acquire prestige through largely different means. Boys continue to acquire prestige primarily through participation in sports and school achievement, while girls continue to acquire prestige primarily through a combination of physical appearance, sociability, and school achievement.