Friendship dimensions in diverse Greek primary education classrooms: Roma students and their non-Roma peers

ABSTRACT

For children, friends play an important role in their socio-emotional development and psychological well-being. Friendships may hold additional value for students who come from minoritized backgrounds. This study aimed to examine representations and themes of friendship in diverse Greek classrooms in which Roma and non-Roma elementary-age students interact daily as an attempt to examine how dyadic relationships may help minoritized students better cope and overcome barriers and adversity. For this qualitative survey, Thematic Analysis was used to analyse the answers of a sample of 57 upper elementary students, 25 Roma, and 32 non-Roma counterparts, that came from similar low socioeconomic status backgrounds, had a permanent residence, systematically attended school, and according to their school grades and teacher, information demonstrated low language achievement. Identified themes revealed that students across groups reported similar information. Children highlighted the perceived similarity between their closest friend and themselves in terms of physical and personality characteristics, emphasised their shared lived experiences expanding through space and time while reflecting the stability and richness, and brought forth aspects of high-quality friendships, such as intimacy and support. The significance and implications for researchers and practitioners of this study are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Diverse classrooms
• minoritized student populations
• friendship quality
• socio-emotional development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data sharing declaration

The analysed narratives during the current study are not publicly available and restrictions apply to the availability of these data. They are available for further inspection from the principal investigator in coordination with the co-author of the study.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Lito E. Michalopoulou

Lito E. Michalopoulou, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of School Psychology at the Department of Psychology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her current research interests lie in the provision of effective and culturally sensitive psychological services to minoritized and/or at-risk student populations.

Constantinos Vouyoukas

Constantinos Vouyoukas, PhD, is Assistant Professor in Educational Psychology, School of Pre-School Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His research interests focus on learning and psychosocial competence of children from diverse language and cultural environments and children with learning difficulties.