Sock hops were dances held in high school gyms (middle/junior high schools maybe, too?) for which the students attending them took their shoes off in order to dance in order to not mark up the floor and music was typically provided by someone switching records on a portable turntable in the corner of the room. Though most popular in the US...and Canada?... in the 1950's, the dances--providing a social activity for young people and funds for groups such as student councils--persisted in some communities into the '70's. I never attended any such events, but were any a part of your youth?

I'm supposing part of the nostalgic appeal of sock hops as they occurred in the mid-20th century is their quaint quality: kids, though supervised by adults, navigating socially, probably especially with the opposite sex, in a controlled setting with music they'd provide themselves, dancing on a surface that would give their feet a unique sliding ability unobtainable were they to have worn shoes. Even if flooring materials have improved to where gyms can better withstand street shoes and music wouldn't come from 7-inch singles spinning on a record player, does the idea of t(w)eens attending high school dances that aren't formal, like proms, strike a fond chord with you?

An early step in the process of sock hops' disappearance arrived early as 1957 with the national ABC TV premiere of American Bandstand (it was earlier only local to a Philadelphia station). When singers an bands weren't mimicking performances of their latest records, the show featured better-dressed teens (at least until AB's standards were loosened in the '60's) dancing in a somewhat more formal setting, giving the program's prime demographic of viewers an aspirational view of themselves outside the confines of the spaces where they took physical ed' classes. Whether it was 'Bandstand, Soul Train, Dance Party USA or any other syndicated or local series, did you ever watch teenagers dance on TV?

Though I never attended a sock hop, the dances at my town's city hall helmed by a DJ from a FM top 40 pop station in my state's capital about an hour away (he was also a brother-in-law to the local high or middle school principal, too,, if memory serves) regularly saw me darken the door and hit the floor until the summer I graduated high school. Whether you wore shoes at them or not, did you ever attend casual dances--not formals--during our middle and high school years?

My recent ponderings about sock hops is actually an extension of my thoughts about middle and high school dances were like before my time in those grades in my town. What they danced to, how and in what kind of setting I'd like to know, but don't really have any idea who I'd ask. I may expand upon this in a comment, but have you ever wondered about such matters--not just dancing and dances, but other socializing and entertainment culture during adolescence--where you live i past times?