Relationships between peers, friendship particularly, are extremely important for development of an individual. Friendship in various stages of life has disparate characteristics. In this master’s degree thesis, we focused on the characteristics of friendship in primary school. We wanted to know how friendship is considered according to age of pupils, different sociometric positions, which developmental stage of understanding of friendship according to Selman’s theory of development of social cognition is achieved and what are their friends’ characteristics. We also studied teachers’ point of view about meaning and influence of friendship on their pupils, how teachers see their role and competence at establishing and strengthening friendships among their students. We asked teachers about examples in their practice about this topic.
The empirical research is based on the descriptive method and we used qualitative research approach. Students and teachers included in the research of the master's degree thesis come from the first, fourth and seventh grade of a Slovenian elementary school. Data for the research were gathered by conducting sociometric tests among students and by individual semi-structured interviews with students of different sociometric positions (popular, average, controversial, rejected and ignored or isolated sociometric position) and their class teachers. The results of the sociometric test are presented with sociometrics, sociograms and displays of sociometric positions. Interviews with teachers and students are coded, analyzed and linked to present literature.
Gained results show that the definition and description of friendship is shorter in the first triad, as students get older, definitions get longer and descriptions get more complex. With popular students we tend to see that they exceed the developmental stage of social cognition expected for their age by Selman, whereas that is the opposite with unpopular students. Some characteristics of students' friendships such as satisfaction, companionship, helping each other, intimacy, self-affirmation, conflict and betrayal are related to their age and/or sociometric status, some are not. Teachers think that friendship influences pupils cognitive, emotional, social, moral, speech and body-movement development. The impact on different areas depends on student’s sociometric position. Teachers think that friendship has lesser significance at popular students and greater importance for ignored, isolated or rejected pupils, and see their role in making and maintaining friendship by talking to students, implementing joined activities and by equal attention to all pupils. With the exception of controversial and rejected students, teachers feel competent in this area of expertise. They gained the knowledge at the school counseling, courses, in literature and through their own experiences. Teachers give students with a popular and average sociometric position less attention than to students with a controversial, rejected and ignored or isolated sociometric positions. Examples of good practice in this area are the use of picture books, workshops, conversations and social games. Awareness of the literature on relationships and friendship is also very important, so is the use of different methods for the development of students' social and emotional competences and the implementation of sociometric testing as a preventive or curative activity.
The results of the research are useful to principals, counselors and teachers, because they provide insight into the perception and characteristics of friendship among students of different ages and different sociometric positions. The results of the research include examples of good practice for strengthening friendship which teachers can implement in their classrooms.
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