The Spectrum of Friendships: Teachers' Perceptions, Children's Perceived Experiences, and Long-term Outcomes

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Close friends are critical in adolescence and are an important predictor of resilience in areas such aspsychiatry and mental wellbeing. However, adolescents who are victimised by friends can be negativelyimpacted in these areas too. Emotional abuse involves behaviours such as denigration, dominance, andintimidation, and is intended to cause harm to the victim. There is suggestion that friendships can beemotionally abusive. However, empirical research on this topic is extremely limited.Adolescents may develop their expectations in later relationships through their close friendships,potentially leading to further victimisation if their friendships in young adolescence involved emotionalabuse. The new school subject, Relationship and Sex Education, aims to teach students what healthyrelationships (of all kinds) look like and how to identify unhealthy relationships. It is expected that thisnew subject will affect students' help-seeking behaviours and will affect teacher and student perceptionsof friendships. Teacher perceptions are important to explore as evidence suggests that they can influencestudent perceptions of other forms of victimisation. Teachers have also previously minimised orinvalidated students' victimisation, leading to students not reporting their experiences.This PhD aims to investigate how supportive and emotionally abusive friendships in young adolescenceaffect the quality of friendships, romantic relationships, and mental health over time. Additionally, it aimsto investigate how Relationship and Sex Education affect teacher and student perceptions on adolescentfriendships and romantic relationships.