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Friendship and Adjustment: A Focus on Mixed-Grade Friendships

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Abstract

Research on friendship and adjustment has traditionally focused on same-sex, same-grade, and same-school peers. Recent evidence, however, suggests that many adolescents have other-sex and other-school friends that significantly impact their adjustment. The purpose of this study was to examine young adolescents’ experiences with mixed-grade friendships (friendships between adolescents in the same school but of different grades), a type of friendship about which little is known. Participants were 179 seventh grade and 178 eighth grade students (55 percent female; M age = 13.2 years, SD = .68) who reported on their same-grade and mixed-grade friendships and loneliness. Peer nominations of same-grade aggression, anxious-withdrawal, victimization and rejection were also collected. Descriptive analyses revealed that 83 percent of students reported having a mixed-grade friend, 36 percent of these friendships being mutual. Adolescents who made mixed-grade nominations and who had mutual mixed-grade friendships reported less loneliness than other adolescents. Results also suggested that mixed-grade friends may protect same-grade friendless girls from feelings of loneliness, and eighth grade same-grade friendless adolescents and anxious-withdrawn boys from victimization. Taken together, findings strongly suggest that mixed-grade friendships are developmentally significant peer relationships during early adolescence.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the students and teachers at Lackawanna Middle School and West Seneca East Middle School who participated in the study, as well as Bill Bukowski, Matt Bowker, Bridget Fredstrom, and Jamie Ostrov for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Julie C. Bowker.

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Bowker, J.C., Spencer, S.V. Friendship and Adjustment: A Focus on Mixed-Grade Friendships. J Youth Adolescence 39, 1318–1329 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9474-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9474-0

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