Como pensar as alterações sobre as formas pelas quais precisamente hoje, em uma era de conectividades digitais, se estabelecem as relações de amizade? Como contribuir para avançar o pensamento sobre a temática, dada a importância do tema da amizade para a educação, ou seja, na qualidade de espaço político e social, de responsabilidade ética pelo outro? Várias perguntas são formuladas a partir da presente investigação, que passa par questionar a metáfora familiar como modelo das relações de amizade, atentando para as possíveis configurações dos lagos de amizade jovem no século XXI. Baseado nestas premissas, o objetivo desta pesquisa foi o de entender como determinadas imagens e discursos engendram formas de aprender sobre a amizade, em uma fase crucial da vida jovem e igualmente da vida escolar: os Últimos anos do Ensino Fundamental. A fim de debater tais questões — urgentes em nosso tempo — foram organizados doze encontros com 122 estudantes de 7a e 8a series de uma escola de ensino publico da região metropolitana de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. Além de responderem a um questionário sobre os tempos dedicados as atividades cotidianas e os espaços destinados as relações de amizade, os alunos selecionaram imagens significantes sobre as relações de amizade, bem como debateram, em grupos, sobre aquelas imagens escolhidas. metodologia de trabalho, fundamentada na técnica de elicitação visual (COLLIER E COLLIER (1996); PROSSER E SCHWARTZ (1998), oportunizou a interação entre as imagens e os participantes da pesquisa, que discorreram sobre definição, características e importância das relações de amizade. Para analisar estes materiais, a pesquisa toma como base teOrica a genealogia e a hermenêutica de Michel Foucault, que sugerem diferentes figuras compostas pelas relações de convivência e amizade desde a Antiguidade ate o tempo presente. Ainda assim, autores como Zygmunt Bauman, Nestor Canclini, Carmen Leccardi e Caries Feixa fizeram-se extremamente importante para compreender os nexos entre juventude, temporalidade e relações virtuais na contemporaneidade. A Internet, através de seus sites de relacionamento, provou ser de suma importância para estes jovens, trazendo ao nosso estudo dados para investigar como se configuram as relações de amizade tidas como "virtuais". Em termos de resultados de pesquisa, destaca-se a força do discurso familiar — que se mostra importante para definir as relações de amizade para estes jovens —, bem como o quanto as dinâmicas de gênero contribuem para uma aprendizagem das diferentes no lago de amizade jovem. Da mesma forma, mesmo que a amizade como possibilidade e risco seja mais restrita e rara nos testemunhos dos jovens pesquisados, esta tese aponta para a importância da abertura a alteridade e as possibilidades de transformação produzidas nas relações de amizade; e, também, para o espaço que a escola pode ocupar nesta tarefa de produção ética e estética do sujeito jovem. / How can we think on the ways that, in a digital connectivity era, friendship ties are established? How can we advance thoughts on the value of friendship within Education, what it means as social and political space, and as ethics and responsibility for the other? In order to attend to possible arrangements of 21st century youth friendship ties, many questions arise from this investigation, which begins by questioning the family metaphor as a model for friendship relations. Based on those assumptions, the objective of this research is to understand how certain images and discourses engender ways of learning about friendship, during a crucial phase of youth: the last years of Middle School. Twelve meetings were held with 122 seventh and eighth grade public school students in Porto Alegre metropolitan region (Rio Grande do Sul State). Each student answered a questionnaire about his or her daily life; about time dedicated to quotidian activities as well as friendship relations. Students also choose significant images of friendship ties and debated, in small groups, about those images. Visual elicitation (COLLIER; COLLIER (1996); PROSSER; SCHWARTZ (1998) was used to engage participants with images. Students had the opportunity to discuss their ideas about definitions, features, and the importance of friendship relations. To analyze these materials, the present research takes as its theoretical basis Foucault's genealogy and hermeneutics, which suggests different pictures of friendship, since Antiquity until current times. Authors such Zygmunt Bauman, Nestor Canclini, Carmen Leccardi and Caries Feixa also informed the theoretical framework by offering understandings about the links between youth, temporality and virtual relationships in contemporaneity. The Internet, through its social networking sites, proved to be of paramount importance to these youngsters, bringing to our study data to investigate how youth configures "virtual" friendship relations. In terms of research findings, we highlight the strength of familiar discourse as well as how gender dynamics contribute to learning about differences in youth friendship ties. This dissertation shows the importance of openness to otherness and to transformation possibilities produced by friendship relations. This dissertation also illustrates the role schools can play in developing youth openness, ethics and aesthetics.

Esta pesquisa de doutorado em Educação analisa um grupo de homens, a maioria deles com idade acima dos quarenta anos, que se identificam como homoafetivos e que se reúnem, sistematicamente, na cidade de Porto Alegre/RS com o objetivo de compartilhar experiências, desejos e angústias vivenciadas. O foco principal de investigação no grupo foi a questão do “assumir-se” (coming out), as articulações entre o processo de envelhecimento e a questão da amizade como uma política de estilização da existência. O trabalho foi inspirado a partir da perspectiva pós-estruturalista e dos estudos culturais. Além do acompanhamento das reuniões do grupo de 2009 a 2012, foram realizadas duas entrevistas com os seis informantes principais, analisadas as atas das reuniões do grupo e participações em alguns eventos extra-reuniões. Ao longo de uma trajetória de mais de dez anos de existência, a luta por um espaço de encontro para as reuniões deste pequeno coletivo, o constante movimento de entrada e saída de participantes e a constituição e o fortalecimento de um núcleo original, mais velho, caracterizaram o mesmo. A sociabilidade dos participantes, associada ao marcador idade, constituiu-se “dentro” e “fora” das reuniões do grupo, na divisão de subgrupos e, sobretudo, entre o dilema do assumir-se e a visibilidade exigida pela militância LGBT. Apesar da circulação de práticas homonormativas e de outras com tons preconceituosos e conservadores, a sociabilidade do grupo configurou-se como uma rede de apoio e suporte aos seus integrantes, sobretudo aos mais velhos, os quais mostraram alguns ensaios e possibilidades próximas de uma erótica do envelhecimento. / This doctoral dissertation in education looks at a group of men, most over the age of forty, who identify as homoaffective and who gather, systematically, in the city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, with the objective of sharing their experiences, desires and anxieties. The main focus of the dissertation was the question of coming out, understandings of the aging process and the question of friendship as a stylization of existence. The research was inspired by poststructuralistm and cultural studies. Besides monitoring group meetings from 2009 to 2012, there were two interviews with six key informants, analyzed the minutes of meetings of the group and participating in some events outside the meetings. For more than ten years the struggle for a meeting space, the constant movement of incoming and outgoing participants and the establishment and strengthening of an original core, now older, have characterized the group. The sociability of the participants, associated with the marker of age, was constituted "inside" and "outside" of the group‟s meetings in subgroups and, above all, between the dilemma of coming out and the visibility demanded by LGBT activism. Despite the circulation of homonormative as well as prejudiced and conservative practices, the sociability of the group was configured as a support network for its members, especially the older ones, who demonstrated some attempts at and possibilities of an erotic aesthetics of aging.

A vida em grupo não apenas traz as vantagens da cooperação, mas carrega consigo as desvantagens da competição intra-grupal por recursos. Nas relações entre pessoas do mesmo sexo, consideram-se ainda aspectos relacionados à possível disputa por parceiros sexuais. No presente trabalho avaliamos como certas características e atributos pessoais influenciam na seleção de amigos para o começo de uma relação de amizade, e como as preferências na seleção podem variar intra e inter sexualmente. Selecionar amigos é uma situação que pode colocar o indivíduo no conflito entre a vantagem de ter um cooperador de alto status, porém, ao mesmo tempo, forte concorrente na competição por recursos e seleção sexual. As preferências na seleção de amizade foram analisadas em função das características pessoais do próprio participante, como sua propensão à tomada de atitudes imediatistas (Desconto de Futuro) e seu perfil cognitivo predominante (empático ou sistematizador). O Desconto de Futuro refere-se a um padrão comportamental de preferir correr riscos iminentes no presente a esperar por retornos maiores num futuro incerto, é o princípio do carpe diem: pensar no presente em detrimento de planos posteriores. O perfil cognitivo empático tem maior capacidade cognitiva na compreensão de habilidades sociais e lingüísticas, enquanto o sistematizador apresenta maior capacidade cognitiva em habilidades matemáticas, espaciais e lógicas. Em nosso estudo o desconto do futuro dos participantes inicialmente menos descontadores mostrou um aumento imediato após a visualização dos possíveis amigos, o que mostra que este processo cognitivo pode ser alterado pela avaliação de indivíduos do mesmo sexo. Mostramos também que indivíduos mais descontadores, por pensarem na competição iminente ao invés da cooperação futura, evitaram amizade com os modelos avaliados como mais atraentes. A empatia e sistematização dos participantes não se apresentaram relevantes na seleção de amigos. Estudamos também como as diferenças, em atributos pessoais (beleza, inteligência e poder aquisitivo) e em características inter pessoais (altruísmo, lealdade, compreensão), entre o selecionador e o selecionado, influenciam na preferência pela amizade. Os resultados mostraram que a preferência em se relacionar com pessoas parecidas com elas em atributos pessoais ocorrerá principalmente para os homens, devido a sua maior competitividade e busca por posição hierárquica intra-grupo, que faz com que eles evitem grandes discrepâncias de potencial competitivo, sendo a igualdade de importância secundária para mulheres. Ambos os sexos preferiram para amigos aqueles avaliados com as maiores características inter-pessoais positivas, resultado esperado em função das vantagens diretas em manter uma amizade com pessoas com indicativos de confiabilidade e bondade. O estudo mostrou também que quando a amizade passa da fase inicial da seleção e se torna uma relação mais íntima, homens apresentam um aumento na preferência por amigos atraentes, pois a estabilidade na amizade acarreta diminuição dos riscos de competição e traição / Group life not only brings the benefits of cooperation, but also carries the disadvantages of inter-group competition for resources. In relationships of people of the same sex, the possible dispute for sexual partners is also considered. This study evaluates how certain characteristics and attributes of others influences in the selection of a new friendship and how preferences in choice may vary intra and inter sexually. Choosing friends is a situation that may put an individual in conflict between the advantage of having a cooperator of high status, but also a strong rival in the competition for resources and sexual selection. Preferences in the selection of friendship were analyzed in function of the personal characteristics of each participant, such as the propensity in taking immediate attitudes (Discount of the Future) and the pre-dominate cognitive style (emphatic or systematic). The Discount of the Future refers to a standard behavior of preferring to take eminent risks in the present than wait for higher returns in an uncertain future. The cognitive emphatic style has a higher cognitive capability in the comprehension of social and linguistic abilities, while the systematic presents a greater cognitive capacity in mathematical, spatial and linguistic abilities. In this study, the discount of the future of the participants which was initially less discounted showed an immediate increase after the visualization of potential friends, which demonstrates that this cognitive process may be altered for the evaluation of individuals of the same sex. We also show that more discounter individuals, who think more on the imminent competition than the future cooperation, avoid friendship with the models evaluated as more attractive. The empathy and systematization of the participants did not present itself relevant in the selection of friends. We also studied how the differences in personal attributes (beauty intelligence and acquisitive power) and in inter-personal characteristics (altruism, loyalty, comprehension), between the chooser and the chosen in fluencies in the preference for friendship. The results demonstrate that the preference in relating with alike people of personal attributes will occur most frequently with men, due to a greater competition in the search for inter-group hierarchy position, which makes them avoid large discrepancies of competitive potential, while the same concept is secondary for women. Both sexes preferred creating friendship with those evaluated with the greatest inter-personal positive characteristics, an expected result with the direct advantages in maintaining a friendship with people with higher trustworthy and goodness indicators. The study also shows that when a friendship surpasses the initial stage of selection and turns into a more intimate one, men present an increase in preference for attractive friends, probably because a reduction in the risks of competition and betrayal as the friendship stabilizes

The current study used a multidimensional approach to prosocial behavior by a) exploring various types of adolescent prosocial behavior toward friends (physical helping, sharing, defending, emotional support, including) using both qualitative and quantitative data, and b) examining longitudinal associations among prosocial behavior toward friends, friendship quality, and mental health (anxiety, life satisfaction, depression). The data were taken from Waves 8, 9, and 10 of the Flourishing Families Project. Participants at Wave 8 consisted of 470 adolescents (M age = 18.4 years, SD = 1.04, 49% male, 32% high school students, 33% single-parent families) from the United States. Results revealed that overall prosocial behavior for boys and emotional support for girls were positively associated with friendship quality over time. Overall prosocial behavior was also associated with increased life satisfaction. Discussion focuses on the multidimensionality of prosocial behavior and implications regarding friendships and mental health during adolescence.

In this thesis paper, I will recount the creative and technical processes of making my graduate thesis film, KOOL. I will describe how the story was developed and written, then analyze the phases of pre-production, principle photography, and post production. I will then evaluate my leadership skills, and strengths and weaknesses as a film director.

Friendships are a mental health resource for adolescents. Their availability and strength have been shown to predict lower levels of depression, higher self-esteem, and higher life satisfaction. They can also alleviate the stress that often leads to negative mental health outcomes. However, studies examining the stress process rarely consider the fact that social networks like friendship groups are not a static resource that effects all people the same way. Rather, demographic characteristics of both the individual and their friends could change the role of friendship networks within the stress process. In this thesis, I investigate the importance of one such demographic characteristic: race. Racial and ethnic diversity continues to grow in the United States, contributing to an increase interracial and interethnic friendships. It is important to understand what impact racial difference might have on the stress process. In addition to using Leonard Peralin's stress process model to understand these potential effects, I draw upon Gordon Allport’s Contact theory to inform my analysis. Contact Theory attempts to explain why and how intergroup contact leads to changes in racial attitudes. Increases in positive racial attitudes may lower unique stressors often experienced my racial minorities such as racial prejudice and acculturation. This research project provides a starting point for deeper analyses examining how contact theory and the stress process function together. I ask if racially diverse friendship networks affect adolescent mental well being (as measured by mental health and self-esteem) and if the race of the respondent moderate the effects of racial diversity in friendship networks on mental well-being. To answer these questions, I perform secondary data analysis of survey responses from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. I use public-use, cross-sectional data of adolescents from Wave 1 ('94-'95). Linear regression models predicting adolescent mental health found that racial difference in friendship networks is negatively associated with mental health for white adolescents. For Asian respondents, linear regression models found that racial difference in friendship networks was positively associated with both mental health and self-esteem. Results on Hispanic, Black, and "Other" race adolescents were non-significant. These results suggest that racial difference in friendship networks have varying associations on mental well-being that depend on the race of the adolescent. White adolescents with more diverse friend groups may experience increased stress resulting from an increased awareness of the racial prejudice that affects their friend's lives. Asian adolescents may benefit from more diverse friend groups because it allows them to find a "sense of belonging" in environments where there is less opportunity to have same-race friendship networks. They also might face less discrimination from different-race peers, allowing the social support benefits of a racially different friendship networks to outweigh any increases in perceived discrimination from peers. The results indicate that future studies should continue studying how demographic characteristics influence the stress process, including the role of social networks. Policies should aim to provide educational resources teaching adolescents how to handle experiences of prejudice and to create positive points of contact for different race peers. Future studies should assess the validity of these results by performing longitudinal analyses that can provide information on how racially different friendship networks buffer specific stressors and discover if the relationships found in this analysis change over time.

According to the American Psychological Association, 160,000 children miss school each day because of a fear of bullying. Existing research indicates that the typical male style of bullying is distinctly different from the typical female style of bullying, which is referred to as relational aggression. This kind of aggression can cause damage to girls in the form of low self-esteem, eating disorders, and suicide. Research on female bullying has increased in the last five years, yet there is minimal research on relational aggression from the female perspective. The purpose of this qualitative study was to expand on the existing bullying research by exploring the opinions of 3rd, 5th, and 7th-grade girls (N=16) from a rural area of the Pacific Northwest regarding the definition, development, and response to female bullying and relational aggression with the use of semi-structured interviews. The main theoretical foundations for this study were the social learning perspective and the social information processing theory. Participant responses indicated differences by grade in the definition of relational aggression. There was general agreement among the responses that bullying increases over time. Participant responses supported previous research findings that victims, bystanders, and the bully suffer from the behavior. Findings from this study contribute to the body of knowledge about female bullying from a female perspective. This additional knowledge has the potential to assist education policy makers, school personnel, parents, and children in understanding and recognizing the female bullying process and consequences. This understanding will assist with recognition and intervention in bullying situations as well as the development and implementation of more effective bullying prevention programs specific to girls.

L‘étude de notre corpus porte sur les chansons d‘amour et d‘ami gallaïco-portugaises datées de la fin du XIIème jusqu‘au milieu du XIVème siècle. La problématique consiste à déterminer quelle dialectique entretiennent le troubadour et la figure féminine à travers ces deux genres lyriques dans le cadre de l‘amour et de l‘érotisme. Leur rapport amoureux repose sur une dialectique soit platonicienne, soit hégélienne, en fonction du genre lyrique, de la thématique de l‘amour et de l‘érotisme, de leur appartenance sociale, de la référence aux histoires amoureuses réelles et imaginaires de l‘époque, mais aussi de la matière, de la forme, de l‘origine et de la source d‘influence de la chanson. Le regard porté sur la femme dans la société médiévale ibérique a subi l‘influence d‘un double discours entretenu par les Penseurs de l‘Église qui a consisté, d‘une part à inférioriser la femme en la rendant responsable du péché originel, et d‘autre part à lui associer une image maternelle et mariale tout à la fois. Face à cette vision, le troubadour entend concevoir une nouvelle image féminine dans ses compositions lyriques, selon deux modèles de représentation. D‘abord, il décrit une figure féminine abstraite et inaccessible dans un espace et un temps sacrés à travers une peinture érotique de l‘amour. Cette figure s‘apparente à celle de la Dame de la cour, de la comtesse de Tripoli ou de la Vierge Marie. Mais aussi, proche de lui, il la met en scène dans des récits amoureux conformes au monde profane et à la réalité historique et sociale, en faisant une jeune femme célibataire ou mariée, appartenant soit à la noblesse, à la bourgeoisie, ou à la paysannerie. / The study of our corpus is about the gallaïco-portuguese songs of love and friend dated from the late twelfth to the mid-fourteenth century. The problem is to determine what dialectic maintain the troubadour and the feminine face through the two lyric genres in the context of love and eroticism. Their loving relationship is based on a dialectic either Platonic or Hegelian, depending on the lyric genre, the theme of love and eroticism, their social class, the reference to real and imaginary loving stories of the period, but also of the material, the shape, the origin and the source of influence of the song. The glance carried towards the woman in the iberian medieval society was under the influence of a double speech maintained by the Thinkers of the Church which consisted, on one hand to minimize the importance of woman in making responsible original sin and on the other hand to associate her a maternal image and Marian quite at the same time. In front of this vision, the troubadour intends to design a new image of woman in his lyrical compositions, according to two models of representation. At first, he describes an abstract and inaccessible feminine face in a space and sacred time through an erotic paint in the love. This face is similar to that of the Lady of the court, the countess of Tripoli or the Virgin Mary. But also, near him, he depicts her in loving narratives corresponding to the profane world and to the historic and social reality, as a young woman married or single, belonging either to the nobility, the middle-class, or the peasantry.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), I investigate the influence of adolescent friendship network on the likelihood of college enrollment, and whether and how this influence is affected by stratification factors (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status). However, there is a challenge in evaluating this influence process since adolescents usually non-randomly select their friends. A selection process needs to be taken into consideration simultaneously with the influence process of adolescents’ friendship network on their likelihood of college enrollment. Previous research on peer effects has methodological issues and limitations. Traditional methods (e.g., multivariate regression, multilevel modeling, or propensity score matching) using limited data (e.g., cross-sectional) and measures of friendship network (e.g., one best friend) could not solve the problem of integrating selection process and influence process in one model. In addition, the dyadic and triadic (or even higher level) dependency among friends in the network makes it more difficult to estimate selection and influence processes using traditional methods. To address these concerns, I employ longitudinal network analysis with stochastic actor-based models (SABMs) to account for the influence of friendship network on adolescent college enrollment when simultaneously considering the selection of friendship. The co-evolution model of network dynamics (selection) and behavioral dynamics (influence) also addresses the problem of endogeneity between network change and behavioral change. However, the co-evolution model requires network data and behavioral data measured in multiple time points, so in the first stage of this research, I generate the predicted probability of college enrollment at three time points of Add Health using traditional logistic regression. Then in the second stage of this research, I use the transformed likelihood of college enrollment, a statistical artifact, as the behavior variable in the co-evolution model to examine how the likelihood of college enrollment affect the friendship selection and in turn friend’s average likelihood of college enrollment in the network influences an adolescent’s own likelihood of college enrollment. In the first stage, I find that there are some levels of gender, race/ethnicity, and SES inequalities in the college enrollment, even after controlling for previous academic achievement, other individual characteristics, family backgrounds, and school level variables. In the second stage, the results of dynamic network analysis indicate significant selection (partial deselection) and influence effects of adolescent friendship networks on the likelihood of college enrollment. In the selection process, adolescents have high tendency to select friends who are similar to them in the likelihood of college enrollment, or terminate friendships with other students of dissimilar likelihood of college enrollment. In the influence process, the average alter effect is found consistently significant and positive across all models and schools, which indicates that there is strong social influence of friendship network on adolescents’ likelihood of college enrollment. The higher the average friends’ likelihood of college enrollment, the more likely the adolescent will increase own likelihood of college enrollment. I also discuss the significance of results and many important policy and practical implications.

Current gaps in knowledge about twice-exceptional youth relative to those with only one exceptionality (e.g., high ability or ADHD) include how twice-exceptional students perceive their friendships (Foley Nicpon et al., 2010). Some researchers have found friendship qualities to be less positive for youth with ADHD (Humphrey et al., 2007), yet others have found friendships to be rated more positively by gifted youth (Field et al., 1998). The current investigation sought to determine how friendships are perceived by twice-exceptional youth compared to peers with ADHD or high ability or achievement, and those with average ability or achievement and no diagnosis. Participants included 65 youth (35 boys, 33 girls) in middle school. Participants completed the Friendship Qualities Scale (Bukowski et al., 1994), in addition to a demographic questionnaire completed by parents. A repeated-measures ANOVA design was utilized to compare friendship quality ratings based on ability or achievement and ADHD diagnosis, as well as gender. Participants with ADHD, regardless of ability or achievement, reported significantly less companionship, help, and security with a best friend than those without a diagnosis. Boys were observed to report significantly less closeness with a best friend than girls. Implications of the current findings for counseling psychologists in the areas of practice and theory include considerations of how youth are socialized based on societal beliefs about gender and disability. Additionally, recommendations for treatment considerations, particularly for twice-exceptional youth, may include strengths-based interventions to support areas of strength to help accommodate difficulties.