Exclusion, Inclusion and Moral Ordering in Two Girls’ Friendship Groups

ABSTRACT

This article makes use of informal interview talk data gathered during a longitudinal study of adolescent girls’ friendship groups. Two group‐produced narratives involving categorisation, moral ordering, inclusion and exclusion are examined with the aim of discerning patterns of girls’ friendship networks. Through a detailed examination of the girls’ talk about themselves, their friends, their enemies, the minor breaking‐ups and making‐ups, the declarations of loyalty, the aspersions cast and the motives attributed, it is possible to discern a significant moral and social order which underlies girls’ friendships. This article represents an attempt to view friendship between girls, not in terms of a pre‐determined model of pervasive, yet invisible patriarchal constraints, but in terms of lived moments of interaction between and with girls who are actually getting on with the business of being friends with each other as they are collaboratively describing events in their friendship networks.