Longitudinal analysis of adolescent girls' aspirations at school and perceptions of popularity.

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine changes in adolescent girls' aspirations at school and perceptions of popularity as they matured, and to determine if there were any differences between participants and nonparticipants on interschool teams. One hundred forty girls completed a questionnaire each year for five years from Grades 6 to 10 (ages 11 to 15), answering the following questions: What would you most like to do at school? Which of the following make you most popular among your friends? and How many interschool teams have you been on? For aspirations at school the overwhelming first choice of the total sample was making good grades; participants ranked being good at sports second; nonparticipants ranked being popular second. For the total sample, being popular increased slightly in importance, while sports decreased slightly over the five years. As for perceptions of popularity, grades were most important in Grades 6 and 10, while looks were ranked first during junior high school. Interschool participants ranked grades and sports first or second, while nonparticipants chose looks as most important for achieving popularity.