This study investigates children’s peer culture, social networks and the role that kids’ food plays in peer exchanges during middle childhood. During this stage children develop social competencies as they join peer groups with other children and become socialized into children’s peer culture. In order to immerse myself within children’s culture, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork at two afterschool programs providing care for elementary school children. I investigated friendships, social networks and exchanges among third through fifth grade children at the programs. The study included participant observation and participatory group interviews with a sample of the children at both sites. The findings reveal how children use exchange of snack foods, candy and toys to build social connections among peers. The results indicate that children are active participants and creators in their peer cultures. They manipulated adult norms to structure oppositional identities as children. One tool for identifying with peers and gaining social acceptance are kids’ foods, which are processed food items marketed for children. Kids’ food served as a form of social currency in expressing friendship and connection. For the children in this study, food provided for edible consumption, entertainment and symbolic connection to peers. The results of this research demonstrate the need to approach child nutrition promotion from a cultural and social view point of children, not only based on physical and health motivation.

Romain Rolland et Gaston Thiesson se rencontrent en août 1912 en Suisse mais leur amitié se renforce lors des deux séjours du peintre dans ce pays durant la première Guerre mondiale, entre septembre 1915 et avril 1916. Sur les 166 lettres présentées ici, 86 lettres sont échangées durant cette période. La venue de Thiesson, au moment où Rolland décide de se retirer de la mêlée, est un réconfort pour l’écrivain attaqué par la presse nationaliste qui l’accuse de défaitisme à la suite de ses articles parus au Journal de Genève. Rolland voit en lui un homme courageux et dévoué qui, après la parution du libelle de Henri Massis Romain Rolland contre la France, veut recueillir avec l’aide des journalistes Jacques Mesnil et Georges Pioch des témoignages de soutien à paraître dans Les Hommes du Jour. L’engagement du peintre pour la défense des idées pacifistes de l’auteur de Au-dessus de la mêlée, est semée d’embûches (les réactions de P.-H. Loyson notamment) et la parution des témoignages est un succès en demi-teinte. Touché par cet homme au cœur tendre, dont les mésaventures le remplissent de compassion, Rolland exprime dans ses lettres sa foi dans les forces de l’art et de la bonté. Après son installation au bord du lac Léman, Thiesson séjourne à Montana avec le poète Pierre Jean Jouve. Après un voyage à travers la Suisse, il rentre en France où il meurt trois ans plus tard. Cette correspondance révèle la volonté exigeante de Romain Rolland de mettre en accord une pensée, une vie et un art pour mieux les opposer tous ensemble aux forces destructrices de la haine, dans la recherche héroïque et périlleuse d’une entente entre les êtres et d’une harmonie entre les peuples. / Romain Rolland and Gaston Thiesson first met in August 1912 in Switzerland but their friendship got stronger when the painter happened to spend some time in that country, during World War I, twice between September 1915 and April 1916. Among the 166 letters presented here, 86 were exchanged during that period. Thiesson’s coming to support him, at the very time when Rolland decided to retire, was very comforting for the writer who was being attacked by the nationalist press that accused him of defeatism after he had published some leading articles in the Journal de Genève. Rolland saw him as a brave and devoted man who, after Henri Massis published his pamphlet Romain Rolland contre la France, wanted to gather, with the journalists Jacques Mesnil et Georges Pioch’s help, expressions of support to be published in Les Hommes du Jour. The painter’s commitment in favour of the author of Au-dessus de la mêlée, is full of ups and downs (P.-H. Loyson’s reactions particularly) and the publishing of the testimonies a half tone success. Moved by this soft-hearted man, whose misadventures fill him with compassion, Rolland expressed, in his letters, his faith in the strength of Art and kindness. After settling near the Lac Leman, Thiesson stayed in Montana for a while with poet Pierre Jean Jouve. After travelling around Switzerland, he went back to France, and died there three years later. This correspondence gives away Romain Rollands’s demanding will that a way of thinking has to match a way of living and a way of seeing Art but then he wants to oppose them all to the destroying forces of hatred, in the heroic and perilous search of meeting of minds between people and harmony between peoples.

This thesis explores how social networking sites are changing the way individuals socialize in everyday life, and how users mediate this social media. The hypothesis explored is that Facebook user’s perception of risk, when using the site, is related to how they frame the technology. Drawing on conceptual and theoretical tools from science studies and the sociologies of friendship, risk and surveillance, interview data is collected and analysed in order to identify the dynamics that structure Facebook use. It is concluded not only that, as hypothesized, participant’s awareness and perception of risk is based upon their framing of the social networking technology, but also that the framing processes arise from the technosocial hybrid nature of Facebook. That is to say, it is not exclusively based on technological possibility or on existing social practices but instead by a constant balance between the two.

This multi-method study provides detailed information about the friendships of 87 children with ADHD (77.0% boys) and 46 comparison children (73.9% boys) between the ages of 7 and 13. The methods used in the study included parent and teacher ratings, self-report measures, and direct observation of friends’ dyadic behaviours in three structured analogue tasks. Results indicated that, in contrast with comparison children, children with ADHD had friends with high levels of ADHD and oppositional symptoms; they perceived fewer positive features and more negative features, and were less satisfied in their friendships. Observational data indicated that children with ADHD performed both more legal and more illegal manoeuvres than comparison children in a fast-paced competitive game. While negotiating with their friends, children with ADHD made more insensitive and self-centred proposals than comparison children. In dyads consisting of one child with ADHD and one typically developing child, children with ADHD were often more controlling than their non-diagnosed friends. Globally, these results were robust and did not seem to be affected by age differences, ADHD subtypes, comorbidities, and medication status. Given the increased recognition of ADHD in adolescence and adulthood as well as the fact that negative peer reputation in childhood very strongly predicts mental-health status by early adulthood, this research may lead to the discovery of meaningful ways to help people with ADHD achieve improved mental health and happiness over their lifespan.

The current study is a multimethod, longitudinal exploration of friendship patterns of children with ADHD. We relied on information from parent and teacher ratings, self-report measures of children and their friends, and observational data from three interactive tasks. In the two phases of the study, the participants were 112 children and their friends between the ages of 7 and 13: ADHD group dyads, n = 68; comparison group dyads, n = 44. Results indicated that the friendships of children with ADHD differed from the friendships of the comparison group. Overall, children with ADHD had friendships that, although stable over time, were of lower duration and stability than the friendships of comparison children. The lower duration and stability of friendships in the ADHD group coincided with more single-parent households in this group, which may indicate elevated family stress. However, children with ADHD were no different than comparison children in regards to the age of their friends and the places where they met them. At both participations, ADHD dyads reported fewer positive friendship features than comparison dyads. Furthermore, children with ADHD reported less intimacy toward their friends, less help and guidance, and less validation and caring. The friendship behaviour dynamics observed during the interactive tasks differed between the two groups. Children with ADHD violated more rules and were less altruistic and sensitive during interactions. Additionally, children with ADHD showed less positive and more non-positive affect while relating to their friends. When a decision that involved a compromise had to be made, the length of interaction was greater and coincided with displayed non-positive affect. Additionally, their friendly interactions were observed to be characterized by unequal power distribution as opposed to those in the comparison group where there was greater power equality. However, our results also suggest that the behavioural trajectory over time was similar between the ADHD and comparison groups. The friendships of ADHD and comparison children were rich in positive and negative friendship features reported by the two friends, and over time there was more open reporting of the negative friendship aspects. Our results did not seem to be affected by gender and age differences, ADHD subtypes, comorbidities, or medication status. Through outlining friendship patterns of children with ADHD, we are hopeful that our findings may be useful to mitigate negative social consequences of ADHD. A practical clinical application may be in recommending measures and creating interventions aimed at promoting friendship and improving social adjustments in children and young adolescents with ADHD.

The thesis explores the experiences of 24 young women from a town in North West England ('Millthorne') as they make their way through their first year of university study. The project is based on a qualitative, longitudinal methodology comprising of three in-depth interviews conducted with each respondent before, during and after the first year of study. The aim of the research was to examine the 'process of relating' (Mason, 2004) for the 24 respondents, in order to think through the ways in which individual actions and identities emerge out of experiences of relationships with kin and non-kin. The project thus contributes to a growing body of literature which attends to the emotional and moral dimensions of social life, and which seeks to challenge ideas around individualism. The public story (Jamieson, 1998) around going to university is one which stresses notions of selfhood, adventure and individualism and so, in the early interviews, respondents expressed a sense of expectation that their identities and relationships would alter significantly once university began. They expected that, by going to university, they would be removed from the clutches of family and that longstanding friend relationships based at home would be replaced by better, more enduring relationships formed within the context of university. The interviews carried out later in the project, however, revealed a divergence between respondents' expectations of kin and non-kin relationships and their real-life, everyday experiences. Significantly, family and longstanding friendships continued to play a central role, leaking into the spaces of university through virtual and imagined as well as tangible means. This meant that respondents did not experience the move to university in the ways they had anticipated and it was not the wrench that many had hoped or feared. What this study demonstrates is the complexity of personal relationships and the ways in which feelings of attachment and relatedness play out in different ways and at different times. Personal relationships are active and dynamic and it is the longitudinal methodology employed in this research which reveals this. Clearly people speak about relationships in particular ways at different junctures in the life course, appealing to discourses of individualism at some points and the security of relationships at others. It is imperative therefore, to capture the richness and complexity of the emotional and the personal, if one is to fully understand the social.

The Canadian urban cultural mosaic is made up of many different ethnic groups. These groups came to Canadian cities over time and used different means to help themselves in the adaptation process, to a new way of life. These groups included not only those from around the world, but those who migrated within the borders of Canada, seeking new and better lives in urban locales. This paper will explore the issue of urban migration in the years following the Second World War and the concomitant means used in the adaptation process. Although the experience of overseas immigrants will be examined for issues of contrast and comparison, this paper will specifically explore the experience of Canadian Aboriginal people. As natives moved to Canadian cities in the decades after 1945, Aboriginal friendship centres sprung up across Canada to assist them in adapting to, what was to them, a totally alien culture. This paper will explore the friendship centre phenomenon, particularly the role of the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre - the largest of its kind in North America. How and when the friendship centre grew, who was involved in its formation and growth, and what import it had on incoming native people to Vancouver, will be the main issues considered in this work. Although some primary and secondary sources were used in research, the lack of such sources has led me to rely on oral interviews for information for this project. Since the interviews were conducted with surviving founders of the Vancouver Friendship Centre, the use of such first hand information has proved most valuable and insightful. The Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre played a key role in the adaptation of the native to big city life. The centre started small, grew, changed with the times, and provided much valuable assistance to natives seeking help at a time when they often had no place else to go. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

Grounded in a social penetration perspective, this exploratory study aspires to examine the impact of self-disclosure on intercultural friendship development between Taiwanese and native English speakers by a section of the following populations: (a) Taiwanese sojourning in the US, (b) native English speakers sojourning in Taiwan, and (c) Taiwanese in Taiwan. This research employed a triangulation of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to answer the proposed research questions and hypothesis regarding four dimensions and six topics of self-disclosure. Consistent with the quantitative results, the five themes that emerged from the qualitative analysis indicate both unique challenges in self-disclosing to intercultural friends and a positive association between self-disclosure and cultural adaptation. Additionally, this study highlights the role of self-disclosure in the four identified stages of intercultural friendship development. Finally, findings from this study have implications for the social penetration theory, anxiety/uncertainly management theory, and theory of adaptation in intercultural dyads.

Orientador: Gilda Figueiredo Portugal Gouvêa / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-24T11:17:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ribeiro_Barbara_D.pdf: 1293978 bytes, checksum: c591ec7ecfcac0359b86704ee5fa6132 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Saltam aos olhos a mudança que a amizade e as formas de interação social que a envolvem sofreram ao longo do tempo. Considerando-se a sociedade contemporânea, nota-se que a amizade é influenciada pelas novas tecnologias, como o telefone celular e a Internet, e suas ferramentas (correio eletrônico, redes sociais e programas de mensagens instantâneas). O estudo apresentado nesta tese busca trazer uma abordagem sociológica sobre tal tema, pois a amizade representa um campo relativamente novo de pesquisa na Sociologia. Nesse contexto, é fundamental que se compreendam os impactos das novas tecnologias da informação sobre as relações de amizade, e a função social da amizade na sociedade atual. Devido à importância de se considerar não só as consequências previstas e manifestadas pelo indivíduo, mas também aquelas não expressas, tomou-se como referencial teórico para o estudo da função social da amizade na sociedade contemporânea os conceitos de "função social manifesta" e "função social latente", pensados pelo sociólogo norte-americano Robert K. Merton. Tais funções sociais da amizade na sociedade contemporânea foram investigadas com base em 37 entrevistas, realizadas com homens e mulheres jovens adultos, moradores da metrópole paulistana, sendo a maioria natural da cidade de São Paulo. Também se buscou compreender as principais formas de manutenção social da amizade duradoura, para analisar a importância, ou não, do encontro presencial para a sua conservação / Abstract: It is evident the change that friendship and the forms of social interaction that involve this type of social relationship suffered beyond the time. And, considering contemporary society, the friendship is influenced by new technologies, as mobile telephone, Internet, and its products (email, social networks and instant messenger programs). The study presented in this thesis aims to show a sociological approach about this theme, as friendship represents a relatively new field of research in Sociology. In this context, it is very important to understand the impacts of new technologies on friendship relations, and the social function of friendship in this society. It is important considering not only the manifested consequences but also the unpredictable of social function by the person. That's why we took as the theoretical reference for the study of social function of friendship in contemporary society the concepts of "manifest functions" and "latent functions" of the American sociologist Robert K. Merton. These social functions of friendship in contemporary society were investigated with 37 interviews, done with young adults, men and women, citizens of paulistana' metropolis, most of them born in São Paulo. Also it was aimed to understood the principal forms of social maintenance of lasting friendship to analyze the importance, or not, of the existence of the physical encounter to its maintenance / Doutorado / Sociologia / Doutora em Sociologia

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