Dare to Ask: Let's decode a few high school subgroups

By Phillip Milano

The Florida Times-Union

Question

What's the definition of a sk8ter (skater) and a prep?

Michelle, 14, Battle Creek, Mich.

Replies

I've always heard that a skater was the same as a slacker: One who does not try too hard.

Bill L., 40, Vermont

A skater skateboards a lot. "Prep" is for someone who's clean-cut, fairly popular, does well in school and maybe wears khaki regularly.

S.R., 21, female, Austin

When "skater" is mentioned, most people will probably immediately think of a long-haired, dirty, tight-jean-wearing pothead. The other common skater look would be a New Era baseball hat with a big shirt and semi-baggy jeans. No matter what they're wearing, "pothead" is always included. But most people who fit the description of "pothead, burnout," etc., don't skateboard. It's hard to nail down a clear description of an actual skater, just like it would be for a hockey player or a painter.

H., 18, male, Clay County, Fla.

Expert says

"Skaters"? "Preps"? What are those? Don't we demean Skaterpreps when we try to break them down into meaningless, obscure subcategories? Many fine, stoned Skaterpreps are just trying to get by in their Acuras® with battered kicker ramps sticking out of the trunk, wearing Aeropostale® shirts while fleeing public sidewalk rent-a-cops, and texting their friends on LG Rumor® cell phones to see if that "footy" of their kick-flip backsmith got uploaded to Vimeo yet.

Not to mention all the Emojocks, Nerdgoths and Gangstercheerleaders who blanch at being subdivided.

But Murray Milner Jr. did, amazingly, analyze these subgroups, for his book "Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids: American Teenagers, Schools, and the Culture of Consumption." A professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Virginia, he spent parts of three years observing youths in high schools and getting more than 250 accounts describing peer structures from students in 27 states.

He found that high schools have become more pluralistic, but traditional hierarchies still exist at "a fair number" of them, with jocks and preps at the top, skaters toward the lower end, and nerds, well, still feeding off the bottom.

With a disclaimer that his research is now several years old, Milner offered that preps tended to be perceived as more popular, upper-middle class, dressing more traditionally, usually identified more with alcohol and feeling social pressure, and concerned with grades, if not intellectual matters. Skaters were seen as overwhelmingly male, more alienated from their peers, totally focused on skateboarding and associated with drug use.

"Initial observations about these differences come from teens themselves, and then movies and media images crystallize and exaggerate these distinctions for dramatic purposes," he said. "Those images get fed back, and it affects students' sense of what it means to be such and such.

"And then the feedback loop goes on ..."

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Phillip Milano, author of I Can't Believe You Asked That! (Perigee), moderates cross-cultural dialogue at Y? The National Forum on People's Differences. Visit www.yforum.com to submit questions and answers. Send general column comments to phillip.milano@jacksonville.com. You can also hear his podcasts or watch his TV spots.