| Abstract: | This longitudinal study examined the relation between stable sociometric status among same‐gender classmates at age 10–11 and peer situation and social adjustment at age 15. Rejected, popular, and average groups of both genders (N = 90) were selected from a representative school sample. Rejected boys and girls preserved their low position among same‐gender class peers at age 15. They also had low status among cross‐gender class peers. Furthermore, rejected children perceived their peer situation as worse compared to other children. As expected, adolescents had most of their peers in ordinary or conventional peer categories, that is, same‐age peers, class peers, and other school peers. Rejected participants had a smaller number of conventional peers than other children in some categories (same‐age and school peers). There were, however, no peer‐status differences in nonconventional peer categories, like different‐age and antisocial peers; neither were there differences in own antisocial tendencies. Antisocial deviancy seems to be more common among boys and their peers than among girls. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 745–757, 2005. |
