published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

Studies investigating the etiology of delinquent involvement have pointed to two influential theories: Differential Association Theory and Social Control Theory. Both theories suggest that bonding can impact delinquent behavior. Strong friend relationships influence delinquent involvement while strong parental relationships serve as a positive influence in the curtailment of adolescent delinquency. Indeed, a great deal of research has shown that both friends and families are an integral part of adolescent delinquent involvement. Although these theories provide us with a framework for understanding adolescent delinquency, the contextual nuances of the connections among friend relationships, parental relationships, and delinquency are still unclear. In this project, I investigate the gender and race/ethnicity of the respondent as well as the predominant race/ethnicity and gender of the respondents’ friendship networks to better understand how both friend and parent-child relationships affect adolescent delinquency. I utilize data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS). Results suggest that both friend relationships and parental relationships impact respondent delinquency; however, such effects differ by the gender and race/ethnicity of the respondent. Furthermore, the predominant race/ethnicity and predominant gender of the respondents’ friendship network appear to effect delinquent involvement for some groups and not others. The exploration of this topic provides a much-needed look into some understudied areas in human behavior. The long-standing tradition of investigating the role of peers in criminal offending has certainly examined the importance of family and the dynamics of friendships. However, few studies have incorporated both gender and race/ethnicity in their investigations into the relationship between friendships and delinquency. In addition, this study is unique in that it examines friendship network characteristics and how they relate to delinquency. Furthermore, this project explores how family and friend influences on delinquent behavior vary across different groups. Neither of these aspects have been adequately explored in past research. It is the purpose of this study to being to fill this gap in the literature and highlight how both gender and race/ethnicity influence involvement in delinquency. / text

Although Plato's views on Friendship, or philia, are almost always found embedded in discussions of erotic love, I argue that these views nevertheless constitute a clear and compelling picture of the nature and value of the best kinds of friendship. Moreover, I suggest that these views on friendship present us with a surprising insight into Plato's overall conception of the practice of philosophy, as a personal process of striving for knowledge at the center of the best human life. To tease out these views on philia, I begin with a close reading of Plato's Phaedrus. As many have noted, this dialogue appears at first to be strangely disunified: its first half is concerned primarily with giving an account of erotic love, while its second half is devoted to a discussion of the nature and value of rhetoric. I begin by examining the theory of erotic love presented by Socrates in the 'palinode' at the center of the Phaedrus, and arguing that we can begin to see a theory of philia emerging from this account. I then argue that a central element of this theory of philia, as presented in the palinode to love, provides us with a link to the later discussion of rhetoric, and a unifying theme for the Phaedrus as a whole: the knowledge of souls. With this unifying theme in hand, I return to the account of philia, and eros, in the first half of the Phaedrus and, in light of this topic, draw further conclusions about Plato's views of the importance of philia, and eros, to philosophy. / text

This study analyzes female friendship in four novels written by black diasporic women and examines the impact of race, class and gender on women’s relationships. The novels emphasize how women face the challenges of patriarchal institutions and other attempts to subjugate then through polygamy, neo-colonialism, constraints of tradition, caste prejudice, political instability and the Biafra war. This dissertation uses characterization and plot analysis to explore the different stories and messages the novels portray. As findings this study foregrounds the healing powers of female bonding, which allows women to overcome prejudice and survive, to enjoy female empowerment, and to extend female friendship into female solidarity that participates in nation building. However, another conclusion focuses on the power of patriarchy which constitutes a threat to female bonding and usually causes women’s estrangement.

The aim of this research is to develop a range of procedures for enhancing conversational skills. From a review of theoretical analyses of social encounters a model of conversational process is developed to describe mechanisms by which interactants construct, maintain and revise cognitive models of their social environment. From this model, three dimensions of conversational competence are derived and a training paradigm devised incorporating the process of cognitive reflection by which functional properties of models are displayed to interactants. This paradigm provides a rationale for discrete intervention strategies to effect changes on each dimension of competence. Preliminary studies report attempts to implement the first intervention strategy in a friendship relationship and workshop group. Using the "conversational cycle" and repertory grid techniques, procedures are developed to exhibit critical interpersonal events and their relationship to modelling processes. The main studies investigate the second and third intervention strategies by developing serial repertory grid methods to exhibit the functional properties of centrality to self-cognition and stability of construction. The training paradigm is elaborated to include these properties at three levels of organisation, and a sequential Bayesian analysis is developed to determine the extent of centrality and stability of construction. The training paradigm is tested in two case-studies and evidence of increases in insight, centrality and elaboration of personal construction are found. This methodology is extended to incorporate repertory grids produced by two interactants yoked by element sample and tested in a case-study of a married couple. Evidence of increased insight and self-partner reconstruction is found, but predictions concerning increased self-partner distinctiveness are contraindicated. These findings suggest that evaluative criteria may not be coincident with subjective strategies, and alternative evaluation methodologies are proposed.

Social inclusion of children with disabilities is considered to be an important aspect of inclusive education. Previous research mostly approached this issue by either examining the attitudes of typically developing children towards disabilities or the friendship quality and status of children with disabilities. By adopting a qualitative research design, the present study is an attempt to draw from these two lines of research to develop a conceptual framework for understanding pre-adolescent children’s friendship intentions towards their peers with physical impairment. The research is also a response to the paucity of local studies in this area. The data are analysed in three domains: Conception of friendship, Attitudes towards people with physical impairment and Factors influencing friendship. Four theoretical constructs, Physical Attribute, Social Attribute, Empathetic Attribute and Cognitive Attribute, are finally developed to explain the relationship between friendship conception and attitude of acceptance. Based on the theoretical constructs, the peer experience of two children with physical impairment, one being a success story and one less satisfactory, is described to illustrate the limiting and facilitating factors for their social inclusion. Recommendations for local inclusive education and suggestions for future research are provided at the end of this project.

The study of social networks has become well established in social science. As part of this development, the past several decades have seen an increasing interest in adolescent social relations. Some of the relevant research has focused on explaining similarity patterns in friendship with respect to social categories and have found homophily (the tendency to select similar friends) to be an important factor, or mechanism, influencing friendships. Although the study of social networks has also documented the importance of several other factors for the formation/maintenance of friendships, it has paid little attention to how different factors might interact. Surprisingly little attention has also been paid to how culturally constructed desires and beliefs might influence friend selection. Focusing on social categories relating to immigration background and religiosity, this research examines how homophily interacts with, or is affected by, a school’s classroom organization, and whether students’ beliefs and desires influence the formation and maintenance of friendships. Specifically, the four studies that constitute the second part of this work examine (1) whether native/immigrant background homophily varies depending on whether ties are formed/maintained within or across classroom boundaries, (2) whether adolescents tend to select friends with similar preferences for cultural diversity, and whether reporting a stronger preference for cultural diversity is associated with i) having more friends in school and ii) being more inclined to select dissimilar friends with respect to parents’ birth region, (3) whether adolescents tend to select similar friends in terms of religiosity (defined as the importance attributed to religion), and whether adolescents are influenced by the religiosity of their friends, and finally (4) whether selection of friends with similar beliefs brings with it similarity among friends in terms of behaviors such as alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking. All four studies are based on three observations of the complete friendship network of a cohort of adolescents during the first year in upper secondary education (N=115) and statistical models for social network analysis, so-called stochastic actor-oriented models. The results suggest adolescents’ inclination to select similar friends in terms of social categories varies with a school’s classroom structure and (for a smaller number of students) diversity preferences. Diversity preferences are also found to play a role in friend selection processes in other ways. In addition, so is religiously. Friend selection based on similarity in religiosity is found to lead to similarity among friends with respect to drinking behaviors. These findings suggest that considering the interplay between different tie formation mechanisms as well as individual desires and beliefs can be important for better understanding the evolution of social networks. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Submitted. Paper 2: Submitted. Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: Submitted.</p><p> </p>

Differences between female and male same-sex friendships have been the subject of numerous studies. Additionally, male same-sex friendships have been studied independent of the differences related to female same-sex friendships. Despite these studies, a comprehensive, agreed on definition of male friendship remains unclear or ill-defined. The manner in which men perceive, express and experience same-sex friendships can be viewed as learned behaviors based on gender schema and sex typing. Men’s friendships, as viewed through the gender schema theory, are shaped through the association of gender based male identity and male behaviors. This phenomenological study investigated male perceptions of same-sex male friendships. The broad research question for my study was how do men experience friendship? Through interviews with eight men, data were collected, analyzed by each case that produced a total of 52 themes for all participants, and then a cross-case analysis produced nine super-ordinate themes. The resultant super-ordinate themes were the basis for responding to the main research question and five specific research questions. Findings from my study allowed for the identification of specific components important to the participants regarding their friendships. A second finding was related to social expectations of participants’ friendships. Implications of my study revealed that although men are generally assumed resistant to counseling, they look upon counseling favorably. For counselors and counselor educators, a better understanding of the way men experience friendship could ultimately be a resource for better practice in the way men are attracted to and perceive the counseling practice.

The present essay undertakes a structuralist analysis of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go, drawing upon the actantial analysis of plot developed by A. J. Greimas, as developed by Louis Hébert. My central claim is that the plot revolves around the protagonist's contradictory desire to find love with her childhood friend Tommy, while at the same time retaining her friendship with another childhood friend, Ruth. The essay suggests that this contradiction contributes to the complex plot where the characters' actantial functions shift frequently. Furthermore, the essay makes a distinction between two different perspectives, namely Kathy's as protagonist, and Kathy's as narrator. This distinction elucidates how narration in Never Let Me Go affects the plot.

Thesis advisor: Irene Mizrahi / This study, which is dedicated to the analysis of three novels by Carme Riera: Una primavera para Domenico Guarini, Cuestión de amor propio, and La mitad del alma, investigates the disappointments and disconnections that the protagonists suffer in their relationships with other characters and the influence of culture on those relationships. This study demonstrates that the breakdown of the relationships between daughters and mothers and between friends is the result of the patriarchal society of Francoist Spain that is hostile towards women. The repression that Riera’s narrators, who are all women writers telling their stories in a personal, intimate first-person narration, suffer under such a society not only causes them emotional problems, such as depression, frustration, lack of self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness and inferiority, but also prevents them from having meaningful relationships with other women as friends and daughters. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literatures.