Visibility and Vulnerability

Abstract

The correlates of rejection and the subtypes of rejected individuals have received considerable attention This article shifts the focus to the responses to rejection made by those who are rejected More specifically, it examines boys who were pejoratively labeled by their peers in junior high school. These boys were observed and interviewed during seventh grade and eighth grade as they responded in a variety of ways to their status of being rejected. Like other ethnographic research on rejection this study found very high categorical stability for those who were rejected Thus, even though the boys' responses included a variety of changes, most were ineffective in altering their status. One individual however, did manage to change his status through rather extraordinary responses. His success resulted from negating the categorical identity imposed on him by his peers, rather than simply imitating his accepted peers.