Doing friend, doing girl? A gender analysis of vocational high school girls' experiences with friendship

• Main Authors: KUNG, LIN-WAN, 龔琳婉
• Other Authors: Yang, Chiao-Ling
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/21157176583329121893

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 性別教育研究所 === 101 === In the context of educational research and school education, little attention is paid to school girls’ friendship experiences. To make their experiences academically visible, this thesis explores young girls’ friendship experiences, drawing upon an interview-based study of 24 vocational high school girls. The data analysis is conducted in relation to the theories of “doing gender” and “doing girl.” The research finds that at the initial stages of friendship, school girls makes friends in terms of spatial closeness, looks, and talks. In their friendship experiences, conflicts of friendship groups don’t necessarily exist. For school girls, though friendship groups sometimes symbolize both pleasure and anxiety, they are more often a source of empowerment, especially for so-called “weird” girls. I argue that the school girls are identified as normal girls by their friendship practices, such as spending time together, and chatting about pop culture and female topics. However, they can temporarily avoid “doing girl” by playing wildly and talking about taboos. Friendship for these girls is divided into three levels with different practices—classmates, good friends and best friends. Couple-like interactions are common among school girls, but not all girls enjoy such intimacy. Any physical closeness beyond the practices of friendship is associated with same-sex love. The research concludes that school girls do gender through role-play and body modification. They succeed in doing friend and doing girl by performing heterosexual femininity of a good girl. This thesis argues that friendship and doing gender of vocational high school girls are influenced by gender discourses of the school specifically and of culture and society generally. Nevertheless, school girls are not completely confined to gender discourses: they challenge, appropriate or maintain the gender norm.