Evaluate the usefulness of Bigelow and La Gaipa's (1975) work for undestanding children's firndship

One of the most prominent exploration 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. Children’s perception of

friendship

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is complex, especially the younger ones. As they grow older children become more intense as well as the meaning of

friendship

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.

This

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essay will

first

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outline Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975)

study

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on understanding children’s

friendship

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.

Secondly

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, it will outline the approach 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 as well as providing an overview on the influence of culture to the children’s relationship of

friendship

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.

Finally

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, it will provide a short summary of the points made and it will attempt to conclude the usefulness of the

study

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. Understanding

friendship

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with young people is more complex than just defining what the concept means. As they mature, the qualities on a search for a

friend

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becomes more profound. At that time it was an under-

re

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search i

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researched

ssue in Psychology. Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975) used an unconventional

research

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approach to other previous

research

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studies,

instead

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

Initially

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, the focus of Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975)

research

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was to understand children’s emotional relationship and what attracts them from one another (Brownlow, C., 2012). In order to understand the idea, the two researchers looked at the distinction of

friendship

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on several stages of child development. They collected a large sample of 480 written essays from sixty children (30 girls and 30 boys) between six and fourteen years from upper-working class and lower-middle class homes in Windsor, Ontario, Canada (Brownlow, C., 2012,

p

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. 242). The usefulness of doing it

this

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way is because children, especially the young ones are able to express themselves better in writing form than expressing themselves out loud. Before they started their investigation, they came up with a list of twenty-one

friendship

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expectations. The gathered data was qualitative in nature. In order to assess the details, they used Content Analysis-which was used to examine written, audio, visual materials- that identify and count the significant information that was useful in answering a query (Brownlow, 2012,

p

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.243). In doing

this

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way, it’s easier to count the occurrence of each expectation which was

also

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referred to as frequency count.

Moreover

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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). 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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become more sophisticated as they mature.

Then

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, they were

also

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able to compare the written essays to their list 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. They found that in general,

by comparison

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of gender the difference is insignificant.

For example

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

p

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.244). Philip Erwin (1988) noted that as children mature the interest in

friendship

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changes. He

also

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argued that peers act as a powerful source of support for the youth cited in (Brownlow, 2012, pp. 240-241). Little ch

ildren mostly r

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children, mostly

ely on parents/carers for support and guidance as they act as

first

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contact for help and comfort. 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) and play dates (for girls), the possibility of interacting with each other,

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

.

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)

The

second

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stage

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focuses on the transition of 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 on 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 of commonness in attitudes, values and interests and the possibility of starting an intimate relationship as well as confiding. At

this

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stage

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there are very specific criteria in acknowledging a best

friend

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. They

also

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start to think very seriously about relationships. 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 ha

ngout m

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hang out

ore 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. Their decision to transform data from qualitative to quantitative data raised some issues

such

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as preservation of the children’s accounts and the possibility of doing it differently without losing important details.

However

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, 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.

Such

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limitations in their

study

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may include some expectations that they might have missed because it didn’t fit to the predetermined criteria as well as the influence of culture in children’s expectations of

friendship

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.

On the other hand

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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 influence of culture to

friendship

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is another important consideration. Gonzalez et al. (2

0

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(

04) conducted a

study

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on

3

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of

00 Cuban and 294 Canadian adolescents to write an essay about their best

friend

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. They adopted the same method made by Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975). Based on the results of their

st

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udy they c

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study, they

oncluded that the written essays of the adolescents from two different countries with two different cultures sh

ows t

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show

hat, the cultural values of the society reflects on the children’s perspectives (Brownlow, 2012,

p

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. 260). In conclusion, the work of Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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(1975) has shown importance 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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has been very useful and influential not only that it attracted attention to an under-researched area, it

also

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introduced the concept to the

study

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of children’s relationships.