Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | M | Merrill-Palmer Quarterly

The study of sex, gender, and relationships with peers: a full or empty experience?

Article Excerpt
Studies of friendship, sex, and gender come in many forms and address a set of questions that are as broad as the study of friendship itself. The papers in this special issue reveal gender differences in the features, processes, and outcomes related to friendship. This commentary aims to place these papers within the broader literature on peer relations. We show that each of these studies is just a beginning, however, as basic points about the origins and meanings of sex and gender effects deserve further focus and scrutiny. Suggestions are offered to promote the further development of research on sex, gender, and relationships with peers.

**********

Woody Allen is alleged to have claimed that sex without love is an empty experience but that compared with other empty experiences it was pretty good. A few decades ago, one could have made this same comment about the study of sex and gender differences in development. There was not much theory or coherence in this area of research, but many researchers saw it as critical to our understanding of development. The pioneering work of several key figures, most notably Eleanor Maccoby, reversed the emptiness of the study of differences between boys and girls by adding ideas and structure to the literature. Efforts were made to delineate and specify how girls and boys differed and to provide theory-based explanations of the origins of these differences. As a result, research on sex and gender became fuller experiences than they had been.

One strength of this literature on the differences between girls and boys is that it has existed interdependently with the study of other aspects of development. Wisely, the study of differences between girls and boys never became a domain of study that was largely unto itself. It has always been intertwined with other areas of research. One of the literatures to which it has had a healthy relationship has been the study of peer relations. This association between gender and peers is not without reason. Theory about relationships has often been organized around claims about differences between females and males, and the early descriptive studies of peer relations showed a concern with differences between boys and girls. As a result, the study of peer relations and the study of sex and gender have coexisted for a long time.

The papers in this special issue expand on the prominent themes from the literature on differences between the friendship experiences of boys and girls. Presumably, a collection of papers about gender and peer relations should contribute to our understanding of gender, our understanding of peer relations, and our understanding of how gender and peer relations fit together. Each of the papers in this issue achieves both of these goals, but they do so by asking different questions and using different approaches. The diversity of these papers reflects the multifaceted nature of research on peer relations and on differences between boys and girls.

Ways of Thinking about Studies of Peer Relations and about Studies of Gender

One way to approach the present papers is to consider how they fit into the literatures on peer relations and on gender differences. At least three sets of categories can be used to organize studies of peer relations. To be sure, all of these systems are fuzzy, and none provides a comprehensive view of peer research. Nevertheless, they provide a way for us to grasp the approaches and goals in studies of friendship and other types of peer relationships. One way to categorize studies of peer relations would be to group them according to whether their concern is with features, effects, or processes. Studies of features are aimed at identifying and measuring the components of peer relations. The goal of these studies is to describe the critical characteristics of children's experiences with peers. Without good descriptions of the features of peer relations and without ways of measuring these features, other types of studies would be impossible. A second type assesses the effects of peer experiences. These projects examine how the components of peer relations are associated with developmental outcomes. These outcomes could be behaviors such as aggression or forms of affect such as depression. A third type of study is interested in what goes on in peer relations. This concern with the processes can be seen in two ways. First, it examines what children do with each other, and second, it seeks to understand how the components or the features of peer relations fit together.

A second way of organizing studies of peer relations would be to consider how the means by which peer experiences are presumed to have their effects. One category would include studies based on the claim that peer experiences mediate or explain the association between a set of predictors and outcomes. In these studies, peer relations are seen as the consequence of one characteristic and the antecedent of another. For example, Domitrovich & Bierman (2001) used a mediational approach in which they showed that in a group...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!