Evaluate the usefulness of Bigelow and La Gaipa’s (1975) work for understanding children’s friendship

Up until the mid-late 1900’s there had been little, if any,

research

into children’s relationships with each other in relation to friendships. Bigelow and La Gaipa (1975) saw

this

and became the

first

people to carry out thorough

research

into

this

particularly complex area. Children’s friendship criteria evolves as they grow, develop and mature and

this

is shown in Bigelow and La Gaipa’s (1975) findings. Their

research

showed that

initially

amongst younger children (around 7 years old) their friendships are based on shared experiences and being able to see each other regularly;

this

progresses as the children grow towards sharing loyalty and commitment (Brownlow 2014 p244). In their mid-teens

this

changes

Suggestion

change

to having similar attitudes, values and interests (Brownlow 2014 p244).

This

essay endeavours to evaluate the usefulness of Bigelow and La Gaipa’s work for understanding children’s friendship. Bigelow and La Gaipa’s (1975) work involved asking children aged between 6 years old and 14 years old to write about their best same-sex friend. Through content analysis they analysed 480 essays, 240

from

Suggestion

for

girls and 240

from

Suggestion

for

boys. Using 21 predetermined friendship expectation categories they created, they counted the number of times each expectation was mentioned in each individual essay. From

this

they were able to see that the frequency of these expectations changed as children matured and their friendships evolved. In essence, they changed qualitative data into quantitative data. Changing the format of

this

data does mean the findings can be easily understood and used amongst similar cultures (Western upper-working-class and lower-middle-class),

however

, it does lose most of the rich, intricate value that qualitative data provides, as shown in subsequent studies by Damon (1977) and Corsaro (1985). Both Damon (1977) and Corsaro (1985) were prompted by Bigelow and La Gaipa’s (1975) study to look into

this

under-researched areas

further

however

they both took different approaches in their

research

. One of the drawbacks in the Bigelow and La Gaipa (1975)

research

is that the younger participants may have struggled with putting their emotions, feelings and expectations into an essay format.

This

was picked up on by Damon (1977) who conducted his

research

by interviewing children face-to-face using a set of loosely structures flexible questions. The

research he

Accept comma addition

research, he

carried out yielded many similarities in the expectations of children’s friendships as Bigelow and La Gaipa’s (1975) did. In 1985 Corsaro developed his study into children’s friendships using ethnography. He became part of the group he was studying so he was directly involved with them and their regular activities and communications. Both of these studies provided data that

was

Suggestion

were

exceptionally rich in cultural values, influences and shared experiences and showed that friendships amongst younger children was more complex than previous studies had shown.

Corsaro’s

Suggestion

Cursors

research

indicated that children as young as 3 years old showed concern for their friends feelings (Brownlow 2014 p253)

however

Bigelow and La Gaipa’s study did not show

this

, possibly as

this

was not one of the predetermined characteristics they were studying so it was not included when they transformed their data from qualitative to quantitative.