The structure of social networks, and people's position within these networks, are important predictors of many individual and group-level outcomes. One type of social networks that is regularly studied are the mutually interdependent relations of friends. This thesis focusses on friendship networks between adolescents in the context of schools. Arguably the most important and consistently found regularities in adolescent friendship networks are i) the tendency of friendships to be mutual, called reciprocity; ii) their tendency to cluster in groups, known as transitivity; and iii) the tendency of friendships to be present between those that are similar to one another, called homophily. Various social theories originating in different disciplines have theoretically proposed and empirically found micro-mechanisms that explain the regular occurrence of these substructures in friendship networks. This thesis introduces a framework of how the relation between these different networks tendencies can be understood. I propose that each of the three network evolution mechanisms can be connected to a type of social situation in which friends interact to form and maintain their friendships. Social situations that are dyadic and only involve two persons are connected to reciprocal friendships. Group-based social situations, on the other hand, are related to transitivity and homophily, where the groups are either defined socially or through common characteristics. Starting from this proposition, I suggest that when two adolescents share one forum for interaction with one another, i.e. they regularly meet within one of the social situations, meeting in additional other situations does not increase the likelihood of a friendship tie existing as much as could be expected from the sum of the effect of meeting in either situation. Consequently, I expect a negative interaction between the different network mechanisms. After a series of empirical analyses that support the outlined reasoning, I use the developed perspective to investigate how the micro-mechanisms contribute differentially to the creation of newly formed friendships and to the maintenance of already existing friendships. Finally, I show how a situational understanding of friendship can be used to differentiate which friendships are most important for social influence and for peer pressure.

This thesis proposes a new way of thinking about conversation as a methodology and argues that conversation itself can be considered as an art practice. The practice research has been developed through a body of five artworks produced between 2012-14, each of which directly engaged with communities and residents of the city of Nottingham, UK, and emerged in relation to the specificity of this location. The doctoral research has been presented within the international contexts of art and social science through several seminars and conferences, including the researcher's co-founding and co-curation of InDialogue (2012 – present), a biannual interdisciplinary symposium. The research engages with existing work on conversation and the dialogic by Allan Kaprow, David Bohm, Mikhail Bakhtin, Grant H. Kester and Hubert Hermans, from which it develops a socio-artistic and philosophical framework to theoretically underpin a body of dialogic practice. For the purpose of this thesis, PhD stands for Practice in High Definition: the body of work produced has been tested and analysed to develop an original methodology, which has been termed APSSL, to describe its five key features: architactics, performativity, storyteller, social activism and legacy. The thesis sets out the framework for a performative and experiential approach, providing examples of the orchestration of space and the dialogic architectures of site and body. Conversation is considered as a methodological producer and as the instigator of practice. Aesthetic in approach, the methodology is recognised for its socializing power in terms of generating the opportunity for a public presentation of self and other, and for the mobility of voices in spaces. It establishes that there can be an artistry of conversation.

Bibliography: leaves [282]-290 / vii, 290 leaves ; 20 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, 1988