How Children Address Each Other in Class and in Peer Relations: Power Balance and Group Membership

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationships among how children in primary school address each other, their power balance, and their membership in informal groups in their classes. Participants in the study were 483 children (247 boys, 236 girls) in the third to sixth grades of 14 primary school classes. The results showed that those boys addressed with the title "kun" (name+kun) were generally more powerful than other boys, whereas girls addressed with the title "san" (name+san) were less powerful than their classmates addressed with the diminutive title "chan" (name+chan) or with a nickname and no title. Girls were more likely than boys to use forms of address to distinguish between in-group and out-group members.