Friendship Patterns among African American, Asian American, and Latino Adolescents from Low-Income Families

Abstract

Using quantitative and qualitative methods, the present study sought to explore: the patterns or types of closest, same-sex friendships among ethnic minority, low-income adolescents; the psychological and familial correlates of these patterns; and the adolescents' subjective experiences of each type of closest, same-sex friendships. Two hundred and thirteen African American, Latino, and Asian American high school students participated in the study. Results of cluster analyses suggested four types of closest, same-sex friendships: (i) `ideal'; (ii) `engaged'; (iii) `average'; and (iv) `disengaged.' Girls and Latinos were most likely to have `ideal' friendships, while boys and Asian Americans were most likely to have `disengaged' friendships. In addition, the `disengaged' adolescents reported significantly lower self-esteem, higher levels of depressive symptoms, and lower levels of family support than the adolescents in the other cluster groups. The qualitative data suggested across and within group variability in the subjective experiences of closest, same-sex friendships. Findings suggest new directions for friendship research as well as new ways of conceptualizing the integration of quantitative and qualitative data.

Developmental Trajectories of Perceived Friendship Intimacy, Constructive Problem Solving, and Depression from Early to Late Adolescence

“…Results furthermore showed that boys were found more often in the disengaged friendship type than girls. This confirms prior results concerning perceptions of friendship quality to typify adolescents in disengaged friendships (Way et al 2001), and is consistent with findings showing that boys perceive lower friendship quality than girls (e.g., Brendgen et al 2001). Boys may value multiple relationships in peer groups more than girls (Urberg et al 1995) and may therefore be found more in adolescents in disengaged friendships than girls.…”

“…Adolescents in disengaged friendships concurrently reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than adolescents in interdependent friendships (Way et al 2001). Furthermore, high commitment and high balanced relatedness can be viewed as two indicators for high friendship quality, and cross-sectional (Kiesner et al 2003) and over-time (Prinstein et al 2005a;Stice et al 2004) associations between low perceived friendship quality and depression in adolescence have been shown.…”

“…Around half were interdependent friends and the other half were disengaged friends. Another study used cluster analyses on perceived friendship characteristics and found adolescents in disengaged friendships based on reports of low closeness, intimacy, companionship, and satisfaction, whereas three other groups were found with higher scores on these dimensions (Way et al 2001). One indicator of perceived closeness, namely perceived commitment, most clearly differentiates between disengaged and other types of friendship and differences in these friendship types in adolescent development, presumably because it is a relatively strong indicator of closeness compared to other indicators (Way et al 2001).…”

“…Some studies showed similar proportions of early adolescent boys and girls in the two friendship types (Shulman 1993(Shulman , 1995Shulman and Knafo 1997), others found that boys were more likely to be in the disengaged group than girls (Shulman and Laursen 2002;Way et al 2001). Furthermore, girls have been shown to perceive higher commitment (e.g., Cheng and Chan 2004;Furman and Buhrmester 1992) and higher balanced relatedness (Shulman and Knafo 1997) in their best friendships than boys, suggesting that girls more frequently have interdependent friendships than boys do, and boys more frequently have disengaged friends than girls do.…”

The Nature and Correlates of Mexican‐American Adolescents' Time With Parents and Peers

“…In this sample, MexicanAmerican adolescents spent considerable time with peers, and time with peers was linked to adolescents' cultural orientations. These findings are consistent with other work that documents the significance of friendships for Latino youth (e.g., Phinney, Romero, Nava, & Huang, 2001;Stanton-Salazar & Spina, 2005;Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 1995;Way et al, 2001), and suggest that examinations of peer influences on acculturation and enculturation merit future study. Because our data are cross-sectional, we were unable to draw conclusions about direction of effect: Adolescents with stronger orientations toward Mexican culture may choose to spend time in the company of Mexican peers or the other way around.…”