Early Adolescents' friendship patterns in middle school: Social-emotional and academic implications

This research examined the interactions between friendship patterns, school achievement, coping skills, self-concept and the classroom learning environment for 182 early adolescents, mean age 13 years 5 months (47.25% male). Participants completed the Friendship Nomination Form. The second phase of data collection focused on adolescents with high or low friendship ratings, who then completed four social and two academic measures. The social measures were: (1) Friendship Quality Scale (FQS; Bukowski, Hoza, & Boivin, 1994), (2) Self-Description Questionnaire II-Short Form (Marsh, 1990), (3) Coping Strategy Indicator-Short Form (CSI-S; Amirkhan, 1990) and (4) What is Happening in this Classroom Scale (WIHIC; Fraser, Fisher, & McRobbie, 1996). Adolescents with more friends reported more companionship and help from friends. Those with fewer friends perceived their classroom to be less cohesive and less cooperative. Females reported more closeness and friendship commitment than males. Friendship patterns had a significant influence on students' English achievement but not their mathematics achievement. The implications of the findings for school professional are discussed.