FRIENDSHIP, TRANSITION TO MIDDLE SCHOOL, AND ADJUSTMENT

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The general objective of the proposed research is to study the nature, quality, functions, and sources of friendship during the transition from elementary school (fifth grade) to middle school (sixth grade), and to relate these aspects of friendship to child and family characteristics and to child socioemotional adjustment. More specifically, the first specific aim of the proposed research is to determine the associations between individual child characteristics such as sex and psychological/behavioral profile (e.g., socially competent, aggressive, or anxious withdrawn children) and (a) the extent to which children have friends; (b) the characteristics of their best friends; (c) the extensivity of their friendship networks; (d) the quality of their best friendships; and (e) the fragility or strength of their best friendships as they make the transition to middle school. The second specific aim is to evaluate the potential influence of family factors on the characteristics of children's best friendships as noted above. Specifically, quantitative and qualitative aspects of friendship will be related to parenting style, and to the quality of the parent-child relationship. The third specific aim is to evaluate the ways in which change or stability in children's friendship may encourage adaptation during the potentially stressful transition to middle school. Two cohorts of 120 children (60 females) will be followed as they make the transition from the fifth to the sixth grade. Classroom assessments will identify each child's best friends in the fifth and sixth grades. Observational data will be collected from yearly videotaped interactions between each child and his/her best friend and with her/his mother. Interview and questionnaire data will be obtained, at each grade level, from each child, mother, and classroom teacher. Social and emotional "assessments" will include friendship quality, conceptions of friendship, social competence, and psychological adaptation. Maladaptive sixth grade outcomes are expected for children who are lacking in best friendships, or whose best friendships are qualitatively poor. For example, those fifth graders who have qualitatively poor friendships, yet whose mothers provide them with supportive parenting experiences, are expected to develop normal friendships in the transition year. For these children, maladaptive outcomes are not expected. Alternatively fifth graders who have qualitatively poor friendships, and whose mothers provide them with unsupportive and harsh parenting experiences, are expected to find friends who serve to exacerbate existing difficulties in the sixth grade. Further interactions between quality of friendship and quality of the parenting experience will be examined insofar as the prediction of adaptive and maladaptive sixth grade "outcomes" are concerned.