![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
Abstract
Childhood studies' research, particularly in the UK, has tended to highlight children's agency, with the interest in showing children as ‘independent social actors’ and as ‘beings in their own right’. Recently, childhood studies have been ‘troubling’ the notion of agency for undervaluing interdependencies. Children's peer relations, friendships and social identities form an important domain, where children's agency and complex interdependencies can be explored. This paper draws on ethnographic research in Scottish early childhood settings, to discuss how children draw upon similarities and differences between themselves – particularly in relation to age/competence, gender and ethnicity – as they negotiate friendship groupings.
Acknowledgements
The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [PTA-031-2006-00428]. The author is grateful to all the people who commented on an earlier version of this article including Prof. Kay Tisdall, Dr Samantha Punch and the two anonymous referees. The paper derives from my PhD thesis and thus I would also like to acknowledge the support and critical guidance, at various stage of the PhD process, from Prof. Pamela Munn, Prof. Sheila Riddell, Dr Rowena Arshad, Dr John Davis and Prof. Paul Connolly.
Notes
Identity is seen as an active and complex process, linked to identification, ‘the dialectical interplay of processes of internal and external definition’ according to which all identities, both individual and collective are constituted and can be understood (Jenkins Citation2008, pp. 40–46).
Other factors like personality, popularity, common interests, the need for a companion, context and current availability, also appeared to exert influence on forming friendships; friendships also developed due to chance or need of companion (see also Smith Citation2005).