The Girls’ Room: Negotiating Schoolyard Friendships Online

After a day spent sitting in classrooms, taking notes, gossiping in the school bathroom (“the girls’ room”), and dishing about “top styles” in the hallways, there is little for a girl to do but meet up with her friends after school to relive it all over again! Whether at the local soda shop in the 1950s or the neighborhood mall in the 1980s, for generations (Bernard, 1961; Childress, 2004) girls have regrouped after school to chat, hang out, and feel a sense of belonging among their peers. So where are girls meeting after school today? For a group of junior high-school girls who attend a Montreal alternative school, online is the new mall. As the girls get off the city bus and walk through their front doors, you can imagine them all hurriedly throwing off their knapsacks, tossing their lunch bags in the kitchen, and rushing to turn on their computers as they settle into an afternoon of music, homework, and catching up on the latest daily news.

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