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

This

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essay

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will evaluate the

research

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conducted by Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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and how useful it is when understanding children's relationships. Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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set out to investigate 'children's understandings of friendship at various stages of development' (Brownlow

pg

one side of one leaf (of a book or magazine or newspaper or letter etc.) or the written or pictorial matter it contains

page

242). It is important to consider that at the point of investigation (1975) there was very little known about children's friendships, as the focus of

research

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was mostly on emotional relationships and what things attract people to

one

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another. In order to conduct their

research

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, Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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created a means of investigating the changes in a

childs

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child's

child

interpretation of friendship as they grew older. In order to do

this

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, they asked

children

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the children

to think about their best

friend

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of the same

gender

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and to write an

essay

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on what they expected of their best

friend

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and how

this

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might differ from what they expect from other people. Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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collected 480 essays written

from

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for

children aged six and fourteen years old, who were in upper-middle to lower-middle-class homes in Canada, they collected from eight different schools with an even mix of thirty boys and thirty girls from each. Before conducting their

research

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, Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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created a list of different characteristics that they assumed children might want to include when writing their essays,

such

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as 'sharing common activities, engaging in organised play, admiration, loyalty and commitment, genuineness, and similarity in attitudes and values' (Brownlow

pg

one side of one leaf (of a book or magazine or newspaper or letter etc.) or the written or pictorial matter it contains

page

242-243). These were

then

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used when analysing each

essay

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. They used content analysis when comparing said results and found 16 of the 21 expectations to be more frequent in the older

childrens

a young person of either sex

children

children's

essays.

This

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was suggested to mean that as children get older the expectations of their best friends get more complex.

To begin

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with, the

method

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of selecting the

sample

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, as well as the

size

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of the

sample

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has some advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of choosing

such

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a large

sample

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size

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is through the increased accuracy in mean values, and the smaller margin for error. Another advantage of having a large

sample

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size

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is that

outliers

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that might end up skewing a smaller

sample

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sizes' results can be identified.

However

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, there were

also

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issues

witho

expresses the means used

with

how they chose their

sample

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.

For instance

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,

one

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issue apparent with the

research

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conducted is through only choosing children coming from upper-middle and lower-middle-class families in Canada.

This

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could

then

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lead to a sampling error, due to the

fact

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that children from other classes were not included when researching and so it would be unknown whether their findings would remain true for all types of

economical

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economic

class, or if there would be changes. Another issue with the

sample

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used is the

fact

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that all participants were from Canada.

This

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can be seen as a disadvantage as Bigelow and La

Gaipa

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are unable to show whether culture may impact children's understanding of friendship, due to the

fact

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that all children used were from the same - Western - culture.

Therefore

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, it can be argued that while Bigelow and La GaIpas'

research

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is useful when considering Western, middle-class children and their expectations with relationships, it is not so useful when considering other cultures and classes.

However

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,

one

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clear advantage of the

sample

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size

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and

method

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used is the

gender

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difference observed. Because the children were asked to write about a

friend

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of the same

gender

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, there could be a comparison made between male-male friendships and female-female friendships.

Although

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the findings on

gender

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difference were rather minimal, the

research

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is still useful as it leads to people being able to draw data for both genders,

instead

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of only being able to use data for

one

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gender

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and drawing estimations and assumptions for the other, which could end up being inaccurate. Another way in which Bigelow and La Gaipas

research

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might not be as useful is through the usage of writing an

essay

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.

This

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is because it can be argued that the younger participants might not have had the written skills needed to be able to write an

essay

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describing the expectations of their best

friend

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.

Although

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this

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method

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remains useful when considering older children - as largely they would have had the written skills needed- it can be argued that the results for the younger participants might not be wholly accurate, and

therefore

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not as useful, as results from another type of

method

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of collecting data.

However

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,

one

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way in which Bigelow and La Gaipas

research

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is useful is through the

fact

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that it was the

first

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of its type. As mentioned before, in the 70s'

research

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regarding relationships focused on emotional relationships, so, though Bigelow and La Gaipas experiment, they opened up

this

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idea for discussion, and brought attention to something that had previously been unknown to psychology.

Also

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, through the large age range of the participants, it allowed showed how children regarded friendships at different ages and

also

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allowed for