Keeping the Ball in the Air: Contact in Long-Distance Friendships

ABSTRACT

As people continue to be more mobile, maintenance behaviors for long-distance friendships will continue to be a part of the relocation experience. In this qualitative study, 25 women age 45 and over, who had relocated a number of times, were asked to talk about how their friendships had transitioned to being long-distance relationships and what current maintenance behaviors entailed. Communication was a major theme involving electronic mail (e-mail), Christmas cards, telephone calls, and visits. Results from the current study suggest that maintaining the perception of the existence of a well-connected social support system could be accomplished with a single, annual contact. Further, the long-distance friendship biographies explored in this study provided characteristics of friendship maintenance behavior that could be grouped into three main categories forming a proposed typology of long-distance friendship maintenance.     

Older Women Living in a Continuing Care Retirement Community: Marital Status and Friendship Formation

SUMMARY

Ethnographic observations and interviews with twenty female residents of a new Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) revealed the patterns of friendship development experienced by older women. Qualitative analyses identified various phases of friendship development and aspects of the social context that facilitated friendship formation in its earliest stages. Marital status was a major factor in the selection of friends within this setting. Friendship styles and strategies for developing friendships varied considerably. Although most women successfully formed new friendships within this setting, certain subgroups seemed at risk for social isolation.     

Summer holiday camps for gay and lesbian young adults: an evaluation of their impact on social support and mental well-being

This study evaluates the effects of participating in a summer holiday camp for Flemish (Belgium) gay and lesbian young adults (N 197). Analysis showed to what extent participation affects the constitution and quality of friendships, the availability of confidant and appraisal support and reported levels of hopelessness, self-esteem, and depression. The study is based on panel data with a six-months interval. At follow-up, respondents reported a higher proportion of gays and lesbians in their friendship network, more satisfaction with these friendships, higher levels of confidant and appraisal support, less hopelessness, higher self-esteem, and lower levels of depression.     

Distant Friends,Mobility and Sensed Intimacy

Abstract

This article draws on a qualitative, interview-based project to argue that emotionally close friendships at-a-distance can create distinctive spatial sensibilities of friendship. These sensibilities are formed when friends move apart geographically. In part, they are composed of the tangible forms of friendship practices (such as visiting), but their main constituent is the more intangible emotional bond between friends which can extend across considerable distances. The spatial sensibilities of friendship thus form particular geographies of intimacy; they shape how individuals come to understand and ‘feel’ spatial distances, and influence individuals’ own feelings about moving.     

Birds of a Feather,or Friend of a Friend? Using Exponential Random Graph Models to Investigate Adolescent Social Networks

In this article, we use newly developed statistical methods to examine the generative processes that give rise to widespread patterns in friendship networks. The methods incorporate both traditional demographic measures on individuals (age, sex, and race) and network measures for structural processes operating on individual, dyadic, and triadic levels. We apply the methods to adolescent friendship networks in 59 U.S. schools from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We model friendship formation as a selection process constrained by individuals’ sociality (propensity to make friends), selective mixing in dyads (friendships within race, grade, or sex categories are differentially likely relative to cross-category friendships), and closure in triads (a friend’s friends are more likely to become friends), given local population composition. Blacks are generally the most cohesive racial category, although when whites are in the minority, they display stronger selective mixing than do blacks when blacks are in the minority. Hispanics exhibit disassortative selective mixing under certain circumstances; in other cases, they exhibit assortative mixing but lack the higher-order cohesion common in other groups. Grade levels are always highly cohesive, while females form triangles more than males. We conclude with a discussion of how network analysis may contribute to our understanding of sociodemographic structure and the processes that create it.     

Friends as a Source of Informal Support for Older Women with Physical Disabilities

This paper uses data from self-constructed social support networks and friendship-focused life reviews to examine the friendship support situations of a small group of older women with physical disabilities. The focus is on how the women have experienced and responded to the friendship changes that commonly occur in later life. Changes in both the form and content of friendship relationships and also in how form and content intermesh are examined. The general finding is of diverse but active involvement in response to the changes such that friends continue to make important support contributions. In some cases friendship support was found to be playing a major, even crucial, role in personal well-being.     

Status Homophily,Sexual Identity,and Lesbian Social Ties

The literature on friendship and social networks finds that individuals form social ties with people who are like them—a much studied concept called homophily. However, few studies have explicitly examined sexual identity as a point of homophily. Scholars from multiple disciplines have long argued that sexuality influences the organization of our social worlds, yet most studies of friendship and social networks under-examine or overlook the influence of sexual identity. This study addresses that gap by looking at status homophily among lesbian social ties to examine the influence of sexual identity, as well as gender, race, class, and family, on their personal networks. Using survey data from 544 U.S. lesbian respondents, the findings make visible some of the factors and forces that shape social ties for lesbians. The results point to the importance of sexuality as an organizing element of social life, and suggest that studies that examine social networks or friendships more often make sexual identity, gender, and intersecting social locations a central focus.     

Non-ghetto gays: a sociological study of suburban homosexuals

This ethnographic study is focused upon the lifestyles of white, suburban, middle-class homosexuals. Interview data on some two dozen individuals obtained in the spring of 1982 was increasingly supplemented and supplanted by continued field observation and other techniques of data-gathering through the summer of 1985. The data on the coming-out experiences were largely congruent with models of homosexual identity formation, especially those of Plummer (1975) and Troiden (1979). As expected, older subjects generally progressed through coming-out stages at a slower pace than their younger counterparts. The middle-class orientation and the suburban socio-cultural environment were also seen as inhibiting homosexual identity formation. The advent of AIDS seemed to have little obvious impact on behavior until the last months of the study. Suburban homosexuals in this study were strongly oriented to their work and career-building, to suburban home ownership, and to obtaining a long-term love relationship with another male. Suburban homosexuals were also strongly individualistic and assimilationist, rather than oriented towards collective action or organizational membership based on shared sexual identity. While the fortunes of the two friendship groups differed, friendship bonds among suburban homosexuals compare favorably with male friendships in the general population. The findings in this study suggest that suburban homosexuals, like many other Americans, are finding suburban life increasingly attractive and that the lure of large cities and gay ghettos has faded.     

Man-boy friendships on trial: on the shift in the discourse on boy love in the early twentieth century

Ideas on man-boy friendships prevailing in early 20th century Germany are analyzed in this paper. The friendships based on the concept of pedagogical Eros, as propagated by Gustav Wyneken (1875-1964) in his Wickersdorf Free School Community, are presented as an example. Wyneken's conviction in 1921 for acts of vice with minors and the diverse reactions in the homosexual and youth movements and the popular press shed light on the viewpoints then held regarding these friendships. As a result of this confrontation, the Platonic model was superseded by the medico-sexological model which has continued to dominate thought on man-boy friendships up to the present day.     

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) physicians' experiences in the workplace

Little is known about the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) physicians in the workplace. There is little formal education in medical school about LGBT issues, and some heterosexual physicians have negative attitudes about caring for LGBT patients or working with LGBT coworkers, setting the stage for an exclusive and unwelcoming workplace. The current study used an online survey to assess a convenience sample of 427 LGBT physicians from a database of a national LGBT healthcare organization, as well as a snowball sample generated from the members of the database. Although rates of discriminatory behaviors had decreased since earlier reports, 10% reported that they were denied referrals from heterosexual colleagues, 15% had been harassed by a colleague, 22% had been socially ostracized, 65% had heard derogatory comments about LGBT individuals, 34% had witnessed discriminatory care of an LGBT patient, 36% had witnessed disrespect toward an LGBT patient's partner, and 27% had witnessed discriminatory treatment of an LGBT coworker. Few had received any formal education on LGBT issues in medical school or residency. It appears that medical schools and health care workplaces continue to ignore LGBT issues and operate in discriminatory fashion far too often.     

Cyberbullying,conflict management or just messing? Teenage girls’ understandings and experiences of gender,friendship, and conflict on Facebook in an Irish second-level school

In recent years, there have been growing concerns worldwide about young people’s safety online, much of which focuses on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Moral panics about sexting and cyberbullying have constructed public discourses about social media as dangerous to adolescents’ safety and relationships. In the academic literature, there are conflicting perspectives on the nature of online relationships, behaviour, and risks, and on the causes and nature of cyberbullying. Less attention is paid—in both public and academic debates—to the role played by gender in online aggression, in spite of the fact that existing scholarship demonstrates that it is an important factor in the dynamics of young people’s online friendships and conflicts. This article presents the findings of an empirical, qualitative and quantitative study of teenage girls’ experiences and understandings of online friendship, conflict, and bullying in an Irish, single-sex secondary school. Questionnaires (n=116), individual in-depth interviews with students (n=26), and a focus group with teachers were used. Our study indicates that significant communicative phenomena within girls’ everyday lives remain unreported and frequently misunderstood.     

Psychological Mechanism of Subjective Well-Being: A Stable Trait or Situational Variability

This study explored the holistic configuration of self-control and self-esteem with Latent Profile Analysis and examined the effect of self profiles on five adolescent quality of life indicators, including deviant behavior, friendship, academic achievement, time management and life satisfaction. The sample included 488 Taiwan junior-high students selected from a panel data. Four-group solution is considered optimal across years. At time 1, the “Quality Selves” group (high SC–SE) had consistent best performance in all the adolescent quality of life indicators while the “Disadvantageous Selves" group (low SC–SE) displayed consistent the worst. Given the same level of SC in “Baseline” group and “Self-Esteem” group, higher SE in the “Self-esteem” was related to higher evaluation of life satisfaction while no difference was found in other 4 quality of life indicators. At time 2, “Self-Esteem” became the “SC-Improved” who had the same best quality of life as the “Quality Selves,” while the “Baseline” was renamed as the “Lower Baseline” who performed similarly as the worst adjusted “Disadvantageous Selves” in indicators, except fewer deviant behaviors. Group membership was generally stable and self-profile transitions were more likely upward than downward. Along the adolescent period, findings suggest the level of SC need to be strengthened in order to sustain a good quality of life. Meanwhile, higher SE seems to be a propelling factor for students to gain better SC at a later time. Educational programs solely aim at cherishing self could move beyond for a double-core direction that also enhances adolescent social adaption with self-discipline training.     

Affective Friendship that Constructs Globally Spanning Transnationalism: The Onward Migration of Filipino Workers from South Korea to Canada

This article explores how affective friendship of migrant Filipino workers constructs transnationalism that overarches different host countries. Following a sequence of ‘mobility and sedentariness’ through ‘multi-sited ethnography’ methods, I discuss the affective friendship that emerges out of a specific sociocultural context in Korea, namely activities of the Catholic congregation. I also demonstrate that such friendship is accompanied by onward migration to Canada through the transfer of ties in a new social setting. Moving beyond the duality of home and abroad, this study reveals that migrants’ transnationalism exhibits cosmopolitanism through the reconfiguration of their compatriot friendship into globally spanning, multi-local ties.     

I Love You,Man

This article begins with a simple observation: there are very few contemporary Hollywood films in which women are shown becoming friends. This is in contrast to the “bromance,” in which new connections between men are privileged, yet this pattern has gone largely unremarked in the literature. This article has two aims: to sketch this pattern and explore reasons for it through comparing the “girlfriend flick” and “bromance.” To do this, we first discuss those rare occasions when women do become friends on screen, using Jackie Stacey's work to understand the difficulties this narrative trajectory poses for Hollywood. This raises questions about the relationship between the homosocial and homosexual which set up our comparison of female and male friendship films and provides the rationale for our focus on the beginnings of friendships as moments where tensions around gendered fascinations are most obvious. The films discussed are Baby Mama, Step Brothers, I Love You, Man, Funny People, Due Date, and Crazy, Stupid, Love. The differences we identify hinge on issues of gendered representability and identification which have long been at the heart of feminist film scholarship.     

(Un)natural disaster: vulnerability,long-distance displacement,and the extended geography of neighborhood distress and attainment after Katrina

After Hurricane Katrina, socioeconomically vulnerable populations were slow to return to their poor and segregated pre-disaster neighborhoods. Yet, very little is known about the quality of their post-disaster neighborhoods. While vulnerable groups rarely escape neighborhood poverty, some Katrina evacuees showed signs of neighborhood improvement. The current study investigates this puzzle and the significance of long-distance moves for neighborhood change among participants in the Resilience in the Survivors of Katrina Project. Seven hundred low-income, mostly minority mothers in community college in New Orleans before Katrina were tracked across the country a year and a half later. The findings show that respondents’ immediate and extended neighborhoods and metropolitan areas after Katrina were less disadvantaged, less organizationally isolated, and more racially and ethnically diverse compared to their pre-hurricane environments, and to the environments of those staying or returning home. Counterfactual analyses showed that more than within-neighborhood changes over time, between-neighborhood mobility and long-distance migration decreased respondents’ exposures to distress in their neighborhood, extended geographic area, and metropolitan area.     

Life satisfaction and family structure among adolescents in Hong Kong

Relationships between family structure and perceived life satisfaction in overall life and five domains of the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale, family life, friendships, school experience, myself, and where I live were examined among 4,502 Chinese adolescent secondary school students in Hong Kong. Bivariate analyses showed that economic status was not a significant risk factor, but gender, level of study, and migrant status had to be controlled to examine the life satisfaction-family structure relations. Logistic regression analyses found that in overall life, with adolescents living with two parents as standard for comparisons, adolescents living with mother had similar life satisfaction, but those living with father only, and those with no parents, or single parent with other adults had very much higher risk of life dissatisfaction. Specifically, the risks associated with the adverse family structures were most excessive in the domain of ‘family life’.     

Friends for better or for worse: Interracial friendship in the United States as seen through wedding party photos

Friendship patterns are instrumental for testing important hypotheses about assimilation processes and group boundaries. Wedding photos provide an opportunity to directly observe a realistic representation of close interracial friendships and race relations. An analysis of 1,135 wedding party photos and related information shows that whites are especially unlikely to have black friends who are close enough to be in their wedding party. Adjusting for group size, whites and East and Southeast Asians (hereafter E/SE Asians) are equally likely to be in each other's weddings, but whites invite blacks to be in their wedding parties only half as much as blacks invite whites, and E/SE Asians invite blacks only one-fifth as much as blacks invite E/SE Asians. In interracial marriages, both E/SE Asian and black spouses in marriages to whites are significantly less likely than their white spouses to have close friendships with members of their spouse's race.