SIBLINGS & FRIENDS: The Changing Nature of Children’s Lateral Relationships

Ros Edwards and Susie Weller

Families & Social Capital Research GroupLondon South Bank University

CORA (wave 1)

He’s just immature. He doesn’t act like older … Sometimes he’s nice to me, more times just an idiot … He can never say anything sensible …I wish he’d go out more and act more like a teenager … Cos I’ve sort of grown up more faster than he is. He’s always been with himself, a loner … He doesn’t do anything basically. And he’s just basically hanging around with people younger than him. Cos you know he never really asks if he can go up to [town] … Sad act.

SAMPLE

Gender Female ~ 62% Male ~ 38%

Ethnicity: Asian/British Asian ~ 16% Black/Black British ~ 12% White/White British ~ 64% Mixed ~ 8%

What are the dynamics of children and young people’s ontological connection to, or separation from, siblings and friends, and what do these relationships mean for age, gender and other status hierarchies and boundaries?

How are these prescribed and chosen relationships balanced over time and accommodated with a sense of separate self for children and young people from different social groups?

What particular ethical considerations arise in the design and conduct of qualitative longitudinal research with children and young people living in different circumstances? What are the specific issues surrounding sample maintenance, informed consent, appropriate methods of data collection, and researcher involvement over time?

PROJECT RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Using talk, and activities such as vignettes, network mapping and timelines, the interviews explore:

Significant life events everyday life. Change and continuity in young people’s relationships with

family members, in particular their siblings. The significance of friends and friendship. Hopes for the future. All within the context of everyday life at home, at

school/college/work and in the local community.

INTERVIEWS & ACTIVITIES

• ‘Sisters and brothers UK-wide postcard exploration’ – see report at:www.lsbu.ac.uk/families/brothersandsisters/

• National Child Development Study 1969 essay replication: “Imagine you are now 25 years old. Write about the life you are leading, your interests, your home life and your work at the age of 25.”

CROSS PROJECT COLLABORATION

•biographical•generational•institutional•space intersections•imagined

EMERGING DIMENSIONS OF TIME OVER TIME

[We started getting on] probably when I was 15 or 16, cos a lot of our friends became friends with his friends. The group we go about with, it’s all mixed ages … We’ve both got a lot of friends … There’s nothing really I don’t like about having a brother, it’s fine … I kind of class him as a friend as well.

CORA (wave 2)

visit

at:

www.lsbu.ac.uk/families/yourspace/