Development During Middle Childhood The Years From Six to Twelve (1984) / Chapter Skim
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6 The Peer Context in Middle Childhood
6 The Peer Context in Middle Childhood
Pages 240-282
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From page 240... ...
In most societies, children begin to socialize with one another in early childhood; sustained and coordinated social interaction becomes evident in the years between 3 and 6. Both quantitative and qualitative changes occur in middle childhood, and, between the ages of 6 and 12, socialization in the peer context becomes a central issue in children's lives.
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PEER CONTEXTS Interactions Child-child interaction differs from adult-child interaction in many ways. Barker and Wright (1955)
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More recent time~use studies clarify, to some extent, what children do with one another on their own. Even so, the frequencies of their activities and the structures of the social interactions remain unstudied.
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Individual differences in aggression among school-age males thus come to be associated with social cognitive biases (a willingness to perceive hostility in others) , negative experiences with others, and "bad" social reputations.
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. Thus, there is evidence that complex attributions become increasingly involved in prosocial interactions as well as aggressive interactions in middle childhood.
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, and recent studies indicate that socioeconomic variations may exist in the values concomitant with sociometric status. For example, popularity in middle-cIass schools is correlated with the use of positive verbal overtures among children, whereas status in working-class schools is associated with the use of nonverbal overtures.
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These distinctive networks suggest the existence of a selfmaintaining cleavage between popular and rejected children. Social attraction thus seems to involve a nexus of social skills, social reputations, the extent to which one socializes with friends, and the extensiveness of one's social world.
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These results suggest that a "crystallization" may occur in social relationships toward the end of middle childhood. Friendship Selection Children and their friends usually live in the same neighborhood, a condition that prevails in both early and middle childhood (Epstein, in press; Fine, 1980~.
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Mere exposure (Zajonc, 1968) may account for these effects, and familiarization may also establish a secure base for social interaction; moreover, as individuals become acquainted with one another, their social repertoires become better meshed and more efficient.
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Virtually no developmental studies have been executed. First encounters differ with respect to a number of conditions, including the sociometric status of the children involved.
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Relatively few cliques are observed in most elementary school classrooms, in contrast to junior and senior high school (Hallinan, 1976~. Considerable interest is now evident among investigators in the social interaction of friends.
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Individual differences in these understandings are largely unexplored except for the work of Selman (1980) , and a connection between these social cognitive changes and behavior with friends has not been established.
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The research agenda is formidable. Groups Groups exist when social interaction occurs over time among three or more children, values are shared, the members have a sense of belonging, and a structure exists to support the activities of the collective.
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Structures Group members differentiate among themselves in terms of social power, i.e., their effectiveness at directing, coordinating, and sanctioning the activities of other members. These differentiations are the basis for the social structures that are visible in every group.
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In some instances these structures seem to be based on dominance interactions, although social structures may also be based on being good at games, knowing how to organize activities, and social competence. In general, individual differences in attributes that facilitate the group's objectives are the basis for the social order; structures based on dominance interactions do not always vary concordantly.
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, little is known about playthings and play situations as constraints on social interactions in middle childhood. The availability of resources and the space with which to use them bear on social interactions.
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and conducted interviews about the goals and strategies the children considered important. Both the third and the sixth graders recognized "friendly" goals as most appropriate in each of these social situations, but, when asked to mention their own goals, the older children mentioned friendly ones more often and the younger children were more often concerned with defending their rights.
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Even a child's understanding of what the social task is may index relevant individual differences in social functioning. Clearly, additional work in this important new area should be encouraged.
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Coalition formation differs according to gender composition, with same-sex coalitions formed more frequently in mixed-sex triads than cross-sex coalitions, especially when children of the same sex occupy positions of relatively low social power (Leimbach and Hartup, 19811. Gender and power relationships thus may interact in the emergence of cross-sex social organizations.
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established, first, that sex segregation derives from both inclusion and exclusion and, second, that cross-sex exclusions are based mainly on sex typing and the "riskiness" of romantic involvement. Even so, "borderwork" (i.e., ritualized "invasions" resulting in cross-sex interaction)
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Microanalytic studies of mixed race interactions compared with same~race interactions are virtually nonexistent. Among younger adolescents in mixed-race conditions, white children are more likely to initiate social interaction than are black children, and white children have stronger influence on group decisions.
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Consequently, the connections between family and peer relationships across time, as these involve self- and other attributions, social isolation, and social competence, need to be examined (following the example of one investigation, in which social isolation among 5-year-olds was found to be predictive of social cognitive difficulties a year later and which at that point were linked to peer rejection and withdrawal Rubin et al., in press)
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, but other conditions encouraging the development of antisocial behavior within the peer context may exist in these years for example, the combination of a negative reputation among one's peers and one's own disposition to attribute hostile intentions to others (Dodge and Frame, 19821. Sexual socialization in middle childhood is understudied, mainly because of the difficulty of conducting relevant studies.
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In addition, social interactions within the family promote individuation and the growth of self-esteem conditions that maximize the chances of success once peer interaction begins. Consistent with these notions are empirical studies showing secure attachments in the first 2 years to be antecedents of sociability, empathy, and effectiveness in child-child relationships at ages 3 and 4 (Waters et al., 1979~.
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Divorce and its impact on socialization in the peer context have not been examined extensively with children ages 6-12. Studies of younger children (e.g., Hetherington, 1979)
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By early adolescence, most individuals are able to synthesize their understandings and expectations of their parents and their peers. Taken together, the literature connecting family and peer relationships is narrowly focused.
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THE PEER CONTEXT AND THE SCHOOL Classrooms are social units of major significance in Western cultures. Teachers establish the climate in these contexts, setting the conditions for social interactions and relationships.
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Open settings thus seem to encourage the continuing reorganization of close relationships to a greater extent than traditional settings do. Curriculum Content Curricular interventions centered on socialization consist of four main types: moral education, affective education, cooperative reaming, and social skills training.
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Social skills training has been used with schoolchildren mainly in an effort to improve the status of isolated and withdrawn children. Numerous interventions have been tried, most based on the hypothesis that such children have difficulties in peer relationships because of their inadequate social skills, e.g., communication skills.
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Kindergarten children were more directive and intrusive than were second graders (especially when the children were asked to assumed a tutor role) , but, since these observations were conducted in same-age situations, it is not clear whether the age differences were a function of the developmental status of the tutors, the tutees, or a combination of the two.
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The notion that adult-child relationships are understood by children to require self-control while peer relationships are based on self-indulgence and unbridled instinctual activity is not substantiated (Emmerich et al., 197 1 )
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METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES Socialization in the peer context confronts the investigator with numerous difficulties in data gathering. Neither as open to surveillance as preschool children nor as articulate as adolescents, school-age children are elusive quarry.
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Telemetric techniques can be used, too both to gather time-use information and to gather information about the attributions and affects experienced in social interactions. To be sure, these technologies do not solve the issues of access and privacy that were mentioned, but their use would extend the range of settings in which we work, thereby justifying an increased effort to use them.
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From page 273... ...
Preschool children possess nascent notions about friendships and their implications, whereas the capacities for engaging in intimate interactions seem to emerge between 6 and 12. Younger children interact distinctively with adults as contrasted with age-mates, but more elaborate differentiations emerge in middle childhood within the social networks of the family, the peer context, and the school.
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1977 The eKect of reciprocity norms on moral judgment and causal attribution. Child Development 48: 1322- 1330.
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1982 Role asymmetries in interactions among schc~ol-aged children, their younger siblings, and their friends. Child Development 53: 1364- 1370.
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1982 Social cognitive biases and deficits in aggressive boys. Child Development 53:620-635.
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1957 Children's attitudes towards peers and parents as revealed by sentence completions. Child Development 28:401-411.
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1981 Motivational and Peer Culture Issues in Reasoning Behavioral Reactions. Paper presented at the meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, April.
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1979 Social Interactions and the Development of Moral and Societal Concepts. Paper presented at the meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, San Francisco.
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1979 Racial integration and children's peer preferences: An investigation of developmental and cohort differences. Child Development 50:936-941.
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1979 Attachment, positive affect and competence in the peer group: Two studies in construct validation. Child Development 50:821-829.
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1968 Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Monographs 9(2, Pt.
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