Who is considered an outsider in The Outsiders?

In The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, the greasers are considered outsiders because they do not belong to the same socioeconomic class as the Socs, which is short for Socials. The Socs are the more privileged kids, while the greasers come from families that are generally struggling financially. The gap in their financial situations also results in a number of factors that separate the greasers from the others and make them outsiders, including their looks, their behavior, and, except for Ponyboy, their general lack of ambition.

The greasers look different from the Socs. They wear their hair long and are unkempt. Their clothes are not the same elite clothes that the wealthier kids at school can afford. In general, they look raggedy, which also contributes to their status as outsiders.

They behave differently, which also makes them outsiders. They curse and, beginning at a young age, they smoke. For instance, when Jerry tells Ponyboy not to smoke, Ponyboy remarks that he and all of his friends smoke from the time that they are young.

They are not privileged the way the Socs are. Ponyboy says of the Socs,

you can't win against them no matter how hard you try, because they've got all the breaks and even whipping them isn't going to change that fact.

The Socs are affected and shallow, while the greasers are straightforward and loyal to one another. Cherry is a Soc girl whom Ponyboy befriends. He tells her that he thinks maybe it is money that separates the two groups. She denies this:

"No," Cherry said slowly when I said this. "It's not just money. Part of it is, but not all. You greasers have a different set of values. You're more emotional. We're sophisticated—cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us.”

The Outsiders as a title is very meaningful to the story itself. It has to do with the characters that make up this tale of youth and prejudice. The term outsider, according to dictionary.com, literary means someone "not belonging to a particular group". This refers to the characters of Cherry, because she moves between the Socs and the greasers. She is a Soc but she helps the greasers and works as "a spy". It also refers to Randy who decides after his best friend gets killed, that he is leaving town. He figures he can't go to the rumble and fight the greasers because he has had an epiphany and sees its uselessness, but he can't stay in town because he will be labeled a coward for not fighting. Ponyboy is also an outsider in these terms. He is much more sensitive and intelligent than the rest of the greasers and he struggles with his identity throughout the story. In the book, outsiders also refers to the greasers as a whole. They are the ones that do not fit into society.

Who are the juvenile delinquents in The Outsiders and why?

Most of the boys in the novel--greaser and Soc--could be considered juvenile delinquents; some of the boys are simply more serious about their law-breaking activities than others. Aside from their love of an occasional rumble, the Curtis brothers avoid the label since Darry keeps a close eye on them and they stay out of trouble with the law (until Pony's episode in the park). Although Soda is a high school dropout, he holds down a job at the local DX gas station while Darry works two jobs to support his brothers. Johnny Cade also stays out of trouble until he kills Bob Sheldon in the park, and Johnny's time on the streets is mainly an outlet for avoiding his terrible home life.

Most of the rest of the boys fit the descriptions of JDs (juvenile delinquents). Steve Randle, Soda's best friend, specializes in cars. "He could lift a hubcap quicker and more quietly than anyone in the neighborhood." Two-Bit Mathews "was famous for shoplifting" and "smarting off to cops." He drank heavily and liked to fight while brandishing his ever-present switchblade. Dallas Winston is the worst of all: He has a long criminal record in both New York City and Tulsa, and he is a true hood, "wild as the boys in the downtown outfits, like Tim Shepard's gang." Shepard, and his imprisoned brother Curly, are even more into the gangland lifestyle than Pony's gang. Tim is a "model JD," and Curly is in reform school for holding up a liquor store. Another local gang, the Brumly boys, are just as tough--"Young hoods--who would grow up to be old hoods."

Many of the Socs also can be considered juvenile delinquents, particularly Bob Sheldon, who drunkenly cruises the streets at night looking for greasers to jump and beat with his ring-filled hands.

Who are "the outsiders" in S. E. Hinton's novel?

I think that Hinton is deliberate in suggesting that "the outsiders" are the Greasers.  Hinton's construction of "the outsiders" is a social reality in which there are distinctions.  She wishes to give voice to those who are marginalized in any social condition.  In this case, it is the Greasers who are marginalized.  The Socs are in the position of social power.  If anything, they are "the insiders" who are able to  "jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks, and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace one day and an asset to society the next."    

Economics is a part of this.  The Socs are financially well off and better than the Greasers, who lack the social standing.  The issue of social division is one that does not create two equal groups, but rather creates a condition of "separate, but unequal."  The "outsiders" that the Greasers are continually denies them opportunity and a sense of totality.  Dally's self- destruction is a response to what it means to be a perpetual outsider.  In presenting life as such for the Greasers, Hinton makes clear what group she feels "the outsiders" represent.

Who are the "outsiders" in S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders?

'The Outsiders' in The Outsiders are the Greasers, the poor kids from the east side of town. The Greasers "get jumped by the Socs" which is "the abbreviation for the Socials, the jet set, the West-side rich kids" (2).  Pony-boy gives the reader this information at the very beginning of the story, because so much of it defines who he is and his place in society. 

Pony-boy feels like an outsider much of the time; like when he accidentally used his switch blade in science lab, and the girl "kind of gasped, and said, "They are right.  You are a hood" (15).  Pony-boy and the other Greasers are the Outsiders, boys who want to prove themselves to everybody that "we weren't trash, that we were just as good as they were" (132).