‘Evaluate the usefulness of Bigelow and La Gaipa’s work for understanding children’s friendship’

One of the most prominent

research

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about children’s understanding of

friendship

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was conducted by Brian Bigelow and John La

Gaipa

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in the 1970’s.

Friendship

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is complex and it has different interpretations for different people.

Friendship

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is seen differently in

children especially

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children, especially

the younger ones, as they grow older children becomes more complex as well as the meaning of

friendship

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.

This

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essay will

firstly

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focus on the

work

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of Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975) understanding children’s

friendship

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such

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as expectations from a best

friend

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.

Secondly

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, it will outline the

approach

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of their

study

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looking at the

research

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method they used.

Lastly

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, it will attempt to evaluate the usefulness of their

work

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and look at the contemporary

research

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on children’s

friendship

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.

Finally

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, it will aim to weigh all the arguments presented and provide a short summary of the points made. Understanding children’s

friendship

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is far more complex than just defining what the concept means. The meaning of

friendship

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in children changes as they grow, the qualities on a search for a

friend

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becomes more profound. Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975) was the

first

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to conduct

research

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on children’s understanding of

friendship

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at that time when it was an under-

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research

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researched

issue in Psychology. The main focus of Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975)

research

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during that time was understanding children’s emotional relationship and what attracts them from one another (Brownlow,

C

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., 2012). To understand the idea a bit more the two researchers looked at the distinction of

friendship

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on several stages of child development. Younger children rely on parents for support and guidance,

this

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is true on most occasions as parents are their

first

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contact for help and comfort. As Philip Erwin (1988) noted that as children matures the

importance

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of

friendship

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changes. Friends acts as a powerful source of support for them cited in (Brownlow,

C

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., 2012, pp. 240-241). Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975) proposed a three-

stage

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model of development of

friendship

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expectations. The

first

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stage

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looks at the significance of shared activities

such

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as sports (for boys), the possibility of interacting with each

other

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other, such

such

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as hanging out at the park or each other’s houses, so geographically closeness is very important. An example of

this

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can be found on the teenagers discussion on

friendship

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, one of the teenagers said that he wouldn’t necessarily

hangout

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hang out

with the people he doesn’t see very often so he doesn’t consider them as best mates (The Open University, 2019). The

second

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stage

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of

friendship

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expectations is the

transition focusing

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transition, focusing

on individual needs

such

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as sharing confidential information about themselves, loyalty and commitment to each other. At

this

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point they were able to make judgement and define the level of

friendship

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they will have. The

third

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stage

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emphasizes the

importance

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of commonness in attitudes, values and interests and the possibility of starting an intimate relationship as well as confiding. Children at

this

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stage

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have a very specific criteria in acknowledging a best

friend

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. Listening to the teenagers discussion online, teenager 1 said that he wouldn’t necessarily confide in someone who he doesn’t know well enough like someone at college (The Open University, 2019). Obviously, the level of

friendship

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is different at

this

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point, the best mates are the ones he can confide in and

hangout

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hang out

more often as opposed to the ones that just say hi every now and

then

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. Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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’s (1975)

research

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helped gain an insight on understanding what the meaning of

friendship

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for children really means.

Furthermore

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, it supplied evidence regarding the children’s

friendship

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and how it becomes more complex as they grow older. Bigelow and La

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gaipa

informal term for objecting

gripe

(1975) used a very different

research

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approach

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compared to the previous

research

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studies,

instead

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of doing observations or administering questionnaires they collected their data in the form of written essays.

This

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is called Content Analysis which is an

approach

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used to examine written, audio and visual

material that

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material, that

involves identification as well as counting important information that can be used in answering

research

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questions. They collected a large sample of 480 written essays from children (30 girls and 30 boys) between six and fourteen years

from

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of

upper-working class and lower-middle class homes in Windsor, Ontario, Canada (Brownlow,

C

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., 2012,

p

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. 242). Before they started their

study

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, they came up with a list of twenty-one

friendship

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expectations.

This

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was done in order to count how many times each expectation was

mentioned which

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mentioned, which

is

also

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referred to as frequency count (Brownlow,

C

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., 2012, pp. 242-243). Interestingly, Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975) found some important differences in the children’s expectations of

friendship

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. Sixteen out of the original twenty-one expectations were more persistent based on the older children’s description

in contrast

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to the younger ones (Brownlow, 2012,

p

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. 243).

This

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indicates that the children’s expectations of a best

friend

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becomes

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become

more sophisticated as they mature.

Then

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, they were able to compare the children’s written essays to their list and used frequency counts to look for patterns in their data that would be useful in understanding about the changing nature of

friendship

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in children. Not only that, they were

also

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able to compare the samples in order to see the differences between boys and girls as well as younger and older children. The

importance

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of doing it

this

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way is because children, especially the young ones are able to express themselves better in

written

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writing

form than expressing themselves out loud.

This

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approach

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is qualitative in nature.

However

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, the researchers were able to transform the qualitative data into quantitative data through frequency counts (Brownlow, 2012,

p

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. 245). The downside of doing

this

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was that they lost the personal as well as the individual aspect of children’s account that didn’t fit in the category.

Nevertheless

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, they were able to compare the differences between the groups

such

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as age and gender. They found that in general,

by comparison

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of gender the difference is insignificant.

For

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example in

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example, in

an organised play boys tend to have more expectations than girls (Brownlow, 2012,

p

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.244). Their decision to transform data from qualitative to quantitative data raised some questions

such

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as using a very large sample and the preservation of the children’s accounts. It is important to remember that they came up with predetermined

friendship

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expectations that were later used for comparison rather than individualised features.

Moreover

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, they wanted to make generalisations about children’s

friendship

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and develop a model that could be used in the wider population. It is

also

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possible that there were some expectations that they might have missed

such

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as the influence of culture in children’s expectations of

friendship

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. One advantage of using

this

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technique is that it illustrates how to transform a large sample of qualitative data to quantitative data using content analysis. The

work

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of Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975) has shown

importance

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in understanding the changing nature of

friendship

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in children through the three-

stage

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model of development in

friendship

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expectations they develop using content analysis. Their contribution to

research

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methods has been very useful and influential because it introduced the concept to the

research

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of

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on

children’s relationships. Their

research

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study

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on

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of

children raised some questions on accuracy and

reliability

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reliability, however

however

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, with the evidence they provided they were able to prove that the purpose of

this

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method was to make

generalisation

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generalisations

a generalisation

the generalisation

therefore

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it can be used in a wider population. Weighing the arguments presented their

work

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have been useful at that time of their

study

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despite of the limitations of their

study

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,