Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School

by Penelope Eckert

This ethnographic study of adolescent social structure in a Michigan high school provides a brilliant new perspective on class-based reactions between individual students and the school. Dr. Eckert shows how the school’s institutional environment fosters the formation of opposed class cultures in the student population, which in turn serve as a social tracking system.

Genres: Ethnography, Linguistics, Nonfiction, Education, School, Academic

195 pages, Paperback

First published June 28, 1989

About the author

Penelope "Penny" Eckert is a professor of linguistics at Stanford University in Stanford, California, where she holds the position of "Albert Ray Lang Professor of Linguistics". She is a prominent scholar of variationist sociolinguistics and is the author of several scholarly works on language and gender. She served as the President of the Linguistic Society of America in 2018.

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although it focuses only on an ethnographic study of one Michigan high school in the early 1980s, Eckert's bid to have these categories apply more broadly seems to fit if you think of it (as she does) as the contrast between accepting vs. opposing the school and its institutions. Regardless how you label them, the behaviors are recognizable. What would be interesting is a study of the present day high school landscape now that we have relativized gender and expanded the number of tribes one can be/not be affiliated with. Is it still broadly two modes? Accepting or opposing? The in-between may have become a much bigger and more varied slice, but it seems they still ultimately have to decide upon which field to play.

[Isabel Pie · Rating 4 out of 5]

arrastado mas insightful

[Ryan John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into this book thinking that it would be dated. After all, who still uses the term "burnout?"

However, I found this book to be still relevant. On the surface, it covers the evolution of two polarized social groups in high schools. A couple of conclusions that the book reaches is that family background does not necessarily dictate membership in either group, and importantly for myself as a teacher, students begin to form identities that lead to future group membership long before they reach high school. The book avoids assigning value judgments to being a jock or a burnout, and while reading, I found myself identifying and sympathizing more with the burnouts, although I wouldn't have considered myself a member of either group when I was in high school (Eckert calls these people "in-betweens", which apparently was a name also used by such people to describe themselves).

Additionally, it indirectly comments on a lot more than the jock/burnout dichotomy. The concepts of class divide and privilege are also explored, and so many times I found myself saying "that's so true" and thinking about the implications that the conclusions mentioned in this book have for the world beyond high school.

Anyone who works with kids should read this book, since it also discusses how the formation of these categories begins much before high school. I'd also say that anyone who has kids of their own should also read it, as the book also logically concludes that parental behaviors affect youth identity creation. I feel like I did a bad job of reviewing this book, but as an educator and someone who finds sociological studies to be interesting, I can't recommend it enough.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

kind of absurd. if you've ever taken a class with her, you hear about this book all the time. but the work remains a classic and sparks off a lot of really unexpected ideas for me. it's really good to think with, even if you're not interested in classical variation studies in sociolinguistics.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

So true so true on how high school prepares us for our social position as adults and how the class system becomes to identify us as young as our high school years.

[Dan Sharber · Rating 4 out of 5]

very cool and interesting ethnography. read this to learn (what you should already know): burnouts rule and jocks suck! :)

[Andrew Valderas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's awesome

[Nat]

I was a clear Jock (in Eckert's sense) in high school (varsity soccer, debate team, cared a lot about my grades, etc.). I should have read this book 25 years ago--it would have served as a very helpful corrective, and turned me on to the wisdom of the Burnouts: egalitarianism, solidarity, and a critical attitude to the way the managerial social structure of the school expresses the social structure of American society. As Eckert puts it on the last page of the book: "What's good for the Burnouts is good for America" (p.184).