I wonder whether this “popular jock, unpopular nerd” phenomenon is specific to the American, and perhaps to a lesser extent Western, culture.
FWIW, it did not exist at the schools I went to in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1960s, nor at university (Edinburgh and Oxford) in the 70s. There were sports; some excelled in them and some didn’t, like anything else. In my later years at school, one of the options for sports (a compulsory subject for all) was chess. From over here, the jock/nerd thing looks like an exclusively American phenomenon that only exists elsewhere, where it exists at all, by contagion from the original source. “Jock” is an American word. I don’t see it used here.
For that matter, the idea of the “popularity totem pole” didn’t exist either. Everyone had their own circle of friends. There was no such thing as being “popular”. I have no idea what it’s like in British schools these days, but “popular” in that specific sense isn’t a concept I hear used.
FWIW, it did not exist at the schools I went to in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1960s, nor at university (Edinburgh and Oxford) in the 70s. There were sports; some excelled in them and some didn’t, like anything else. In my later years at school, one of the options for sports (a compulsory subject for all) was chess. From over here, the jock/nerd thing looks like an exclusively American phenomenon that only exists elsewhere, where it exists at all, by contagion from the original source. “Jock” is an American word. I don’t see it used here.
For that matter, the idea of the “popularity totem pole” didn’t exist either. Everyone had their own circle of friends. There was no such thing as being “popular”. I have no idea what it’s like in British schools these days, but “popular” in that specific sense isn’t a concept I hear used.