Relationships among Peers: What Lead to Acceptance or Rejection in Argentine States School? The importance for the Promotion of Mental Health in Socially Vulnerable Contexts

GRECO, CAROLINA ; ISON, MIRTA SUSANA

Shanghai

Congreso; The 23rd Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development; 2014

International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development (ISSBD)

Establishing relationships with peers is one of the main developmental tasks in middle childhood, preadolescence, and adolescence, as these relationships contribute to the socio-emotional and intellectual development of children and promote their psychosocial adjustment in adulthood. The experience of being accepted by peers enhances psychological wellbeing whereas rejection constitutes a stressful interpersonal experience (Rubin,Bukowski & Parker, 2006). Sociometric procedures allow for an assessment of which and how many individuals are accepted/rejected within a social group (Cillessen & Bukowki, 2000). However, they provide no information regarding the reasons why certain individuals are either accepted or rejected in a peer group. So the aims of this study were:  a) to analyze the relation existing between acceptance and rejection and victimization and aggression among peers; b) to explore schoolchildren´s attributions of acceptance-rejection in their group. Sample : 116 school children of both genders attending fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades at a public primary school located in vunerable social context. The children´s free consent and their parents´ authorization was required for it. Research Design: mixed quantitative-qualitative approach, using cross-sectional data collection. Research Tools: The Bull questionnaire, evaluate socio-emotional relationships in the classroom (Cerezo Ramírez & Esteban, 1994), adapted for Argentina by Moreno e Ison (2002); one-to-one and focus group interviews with children characterized as accepted, rejected, victims and/or aggressors according to the questionnaire. The verbal responses offered by children during the focused interview were transcribed and classified by means of the content analysis technique. The emergent type coding system was used. Results and Conclusions: the children considered to be aggressors (mainly boys) were rejected by their peer group, except for some of them who had obtained medium or even high levels of popularity within the group, that is, they were accepted as well as rejected by their peer group. Acceptance and rejection of victimized children was low; they did not reach a high level of popularity or were perceived as popular. Based on the content analysis, the sources of popularity or lack of popularity depended on individual characteristics such as physical weakness or strength, personality traits, socio cognitive abilities, loyalty, friendliness, unfriendliness, companionship and friendship, and group interaction characteristics such as control-submission, sense of belonging to a group and enjoyment. There were some difference in the kind of attributions for popularity and rejection according to the age. An ecological model of development for evaluation and intervention could be usefully implemented in order to apply differentiated approaches that cater to the needs of different groups of children with specific sociocultural characteristics.