What strengthens or hinders friendships when changing schools?
A study in cooperation with Karl Landsteiner University investigated young people's views on those factors that facilitate or hinder the development of friendships with peers at the time of school change. For the first time, a methodology from participatory research was used in which young people were actively involved in the qualitative survey through workshops. The analysis was conducted as part of the research project "D.O.T - The Open Door", which deals with mental health promotion of young people and was established by the Karl Landsteiner University in Krems and Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft.
Secure and familiar relationships with peers are essential for mental health and well-being. Therefore, friends are a valuable resource, especially during the transition from primary to secondary school. However, current literature lacks both new approaches to studying friendship development and engaging adolescents in research about themselves. The current study, published in the Journal of School Psychology, used novel participatory research methods in which adolescents were actively involved in analysing the data they generated themselves, describes Ina Krammer, one of the study authors. "We wanted to get a better understanding of the topic and identify concrete factors that can have an influence in practice.
Young people as experts of their generation
A total of 916 pupils around the age of 10 took part in 54 participatory workshops that were carried out in Lower Austria. "We used a so-called reflexive thematic analysis to analyse the qualitative data from parts of a large series of participatory workshop activities. The themes were divided into personal, interpersonal and external factors." The findings show that young people value friendly peers who make them feel safe, are supportive and empathetic, manage conflict and avoid negative behaviour. Other important factors include spending time together and being able to communicate in both offline and online environments. Although shared norms of behaviour can support the development of friendships, jealousy of friendships and tolerating larger friendship groups were identified as important potential barriers. External factors, such as similarities, physical proximity and length of acquaintance were included in the data, but were rated as less important by the young people.
"Our evaluations complement the existing literature on peer relationships by showing which factors are considered most important for the development of friendships by the young people themselves," explains the study author. Criteria for this were collected in numerous workshops. Aggressive behaviour, for example, is just as much of a hindrance as not protecting someone or blabbing things about others. In contrast, an encouraging, nice and helping manner is particularly helpful in building relationships and establishing trust.
Results: The way forward for practice
But what does it take to incorporate these findings into practice and how can the discussion of implications for school psychology practice and future research be taken forward? For the authors of the study, the answers and the challenges involved are obvious: "What is urgently needed is direct promotion of these social skills and the handling of conflicts in classes. Teachers should be given the time to positively support the young people's behaviour. The open question is who could be assigned this task in the stressful everyday school life, because a separate subject for this does not exist at every school and trained teaching staff with a focus on social competence development and conflict management is not provided for in teacher training. This is one of the main problems in our school system."
How important security and friendship are for mental well-being is also shown by the fact of the possible effects: If the class climate is more positive, more friendships can develop. In the long run, this also strengthens learning behaviour. "When there is a change of school and many new children in the class, joint activities and a very conscious getting-to-know-you phase help." Social media also play a role, but cannot replace direct contact, as the young people also see it. "TikTok videos and the like can promote friendships because you have common points of contact, but it becomes difficult if you are excluded or blocked from various groups.
Link to the study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2023.03.001
