This study aims to understand how female students, experiencing transition from elementary school to middle school, build up their heterosexual culture within their homosexual peer group.
In doing so, we interviewed, coupled with participant observation, 9 female students from June 2014 to April 2015 (i.e., the transition period from elementary school to middle school). The results are as follows.
First, female students have clear ideal types regarding couples, which specify ideal characteristics or role of boyfriend and girlfriend. For example, according to their standard, boyfriend should be ‘Kabaedong’ or ‘Chendaerae’, while girlfriend should be ‘slim’, ‘sexy’ or ‘innocent’. On the one hand, at first glance, it seems they merely accept the image of femininity (or maleness) based on the traditional gender identity. On the other hand, it is appropriate to see the image as a result of self-selection by the female students, rather than built up by external enforcement. Accordingly, this issue is beyond the traditional dichotomic gender ideology.
Next, we found that they have their own natural sequence of love (or dating) and rule for their relationship. It is standard that man should first ask girl for a date and her peer group rather than the girl herself, decides whether to accept or not. In addition, they think love (or all the sequence of love or dating) should naturally appear while they play with each other. They also think that their relationship should be secrete and they have their own way to deal with breakup.