FRIENDSHIP FORMATION BETWEEN VISUALLY IMPAIRED AND NON-VISUALLY IMPAIRED PUPILS IN SELECTED INCLUSIVE BASIC SCHOOLS IN GHANA

<p>The purpose of the study was to describe the nature of friendships formations that exists between pupils with visual impairment and their non-visually impaired peers in 3 inclusive schools in Ghana. I adopted a phenomenology research design in recruiting 14 pupils with visual impairment in this study. One-on-one interviews were used to collect data for the study. Using thematic analysis, data from the one-on-one interviews were manually analyzed via themes that emerged from the data. Results from the study showed that there existed some levels of friendships between the non-visually impaired and non-non-visually impaired pupils in the schools and this friendship formations centred on assistance provided by the non-visually impaired. While some of the pupils noted that they mutually engaged in positive relationship with non-visually impaired, some thought otherwise and yet others described it as only perfunctory. I recommended that educational authorities in Ghana should put in place, a policy in schools that will solely focus on the formation of friendship between pupils who are visually impaired and the non-visually impaired. Teachers should help develop the capacity of both pupils with and without visual impairments to make and maintain stable and satisfying friendships through play and group activities.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0976/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Communicative Coping and Friendship Among Persons Living With Dementia: Findings From Long-Term Care

The study of identity is central to many disciplines, however there is a special link that connects language and discourse to identities. The way people speak reveals a lot about who they are. Through discourse and communication individuals convey and negotiate their sense of self (de Fina, 2020). Regardless of cognitive status, persons living with dementia (PLWD) use language to construct for themselves a social identity of being included in friendship networks (de Medeiros et al., 2011). This paper uses data from the Friendship Study to examine the use of such communicative coping behavior (CCB) for friendship formation. Ethnographic observations of PLWD were conducted in a Long-Term Care residential setting. Sociolinguistic discourse analysis of verbatim transcripts with reference to the CCB Checklist (Saunders et al., 2016) reveal evidence of CCB use. Results suggest that different types of CCBs were used to construct identity and negotiate friendship challenges in different contexts.

Friendships Through Inclusive Postsecondary Education Programs: Perspectives of Current and Former Students With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

The formation of friendships is central to the college experience. Yet little is known about the relationships young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities form through their inclusive postsecondary education programs or maintain after graduation. We interviewed 12 current students and alumni about their social networks and their views regarding friendships. Participants shared their perspectives on the multiple meaning of friendship, the size and composition of their social networks, and the areas in which college has positively impacted their social lives. We offer recommendations for research and practice aimed at understanding and enhancing friendship formation within the inclusive higher education movement.

An Analysis of Differences in the Role of Friendships and the School Class in Children’s Perceptions of Bullying in England and Ijime in Japan: A Translation and Expansion of Kanetsuna (2009)

This is an English translation with some expansion of the article originally published in Japanese as a university bulletin in 2009. Previous research has found both differences and similarities between ijime in Japan and bullying in England. Bullying is often by pupils in different classes or higher year groups whom the victim does not know very well; ijime is often by victims’ classmates whom the victim knows very well. However, it has not been shown whether these differences are found for all types of bullying, or how they relate to friendships generally and the impact of differing school systems. We aimed to see whether previously found differences between ijime and bullying could be replicated, and, if so, whether they held for six different types of victimization, and whether friendship characteristics were consistent with explaining why they occur. To investigate the role of friendships and their location, 1036 Japanese and 931 English secondary school pupils participated in a comparative study of perceptions of bullying and ijime. The previous differences were confirmed and found to hold irrespective of type of bullying. Japanese pupils mainly formed friendships on a class basis, English pupils on a broader basis including pupils in different years. In school, English pupils spent much time in the playground with their friends and saw this as a likely venue for bullying, whereas Japanese pupils spent more time in the classroom and saw this as a likely venue for ijime. The difference in friendship formation, together with differences in the organization of class-based teaching in the two countries, are hypothesized to play a significant role in explaining some differences between bullying and ijime.

Effects of a Physical Activity Program Potentiated with ICTs on the Formation and Dissolution of Friendship Networks of Children in a Middle-Income Country

This paper assesses the potential cohesion effect of a physical activity (PA) school-based intervention potentiated using text messages (SMS) through analyzing longitudinally the friendship network structure and the mechanisms of the formation and dissolution of friendships. Three schools (n = 125 participants) in Bogotá, Colombia, were randomly assigned into three groups: Modulo Activo Recreo Activo (MARA) + SMS (networks 1 and 2), MARA (networks 3 and 4), and control (no intervention: networks 5–7). We collected socio-economic, health-related, network structure, and intervention satisfaction variables in the baseline and after 10 weeks on July–November 2013. For each classroom network, we conducted four models using a temporal and static network approach to assess (1) temporal social network changes, (2) friendship homophily, (3) friendship formation and dissolution mechanisms, and (4) effect of SMS on the networks’ cohesion. We found that (1) social cohesion emerged in the four intervened networks that were measured over time with transitivity and homophily driven by clustering, (2) the intervention affected the mechanisms of friendship formation and dissolution, and (3) MARA + SMS on average created more social cohesion and 3.8 more friendships than the program alone. Potentially, school-based interventions with information and communication technologies (ICT) such as MARA + SMS could encourage social cohesion among children. The particular characteristics of each school network need to be considered when developing school-based interventions.

The Homophily Effect of Demographic Attributes: Moderating Role of Demographic Salience and Time Effect

This paper explores the role of homophily with respect to demographic attributes on the formation of friendships, focusing on the moderating effect of attribute salience and time effect. To address the research questions, we explored a data set collected from Master of Public Administration (MPA) students in four waves over a period of nearly a year. An actor-based model was employed to test various research hypotheses concerning the longitudinal evolution of a friendship network. As a result, we found that (1) salience of demographic attributes does not moderate the relationship between the attributes and friendship ties and (2) age homophily is associated with friendship formation only in the initial stage.

Friends through school and family: Refugee girls’ talk about friendship formation

This article explores refugee girls’ talk about friendship formation. Friendship is a complex process and a subjective experience. The study participants stressed similarity and cultural affinity as important criteria of forming friendships. Those who attended schools with a mixture of students described their native peers as having different temperaments and interests. Relatives were referred to as being best friends who one could trust and confide in. This suggests the need for a broad conceptualisation of friendship in research and practice.