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Girlfriends and boyfriends diverging in middle childhood and coming together in romantic relationships.

Article Excerpt
This conclusion to this special issue on gender and friendships considers how these studies confirm, challenge, and extend the two cultures (Maccoby, 1998) and emotional trade-offs (Rose & Rudolph, 2006) perspectives. An intriguing but rarely tested feature of the two cultures framework is that gender segregation and the different peer cultures that result might lead to challenges when girls and boys come together in romantic relationships in adolescence and adulthood. This conclusion highlights the possible implications of gender differences in friendships in middle childhood for emerging romantic relationships in adolescence.

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The period of gender separation in childhood is followed by a period in which the strong forces of sexual attraction emerge, drawing the two sexes together. But the prior period of gender segregation has created gender divergences in modes of relating to others that call for considerable negotiation between people engaged in the formation of new heterosexual relationships.

Maccoby (1998, p. 12)

The essays in this special issue offer new insights about how gender may influence girls' and boys' friendships and how friendships relate to adjustment during the age range of middle childhood. Reading these essays and the commentaries by Bukowski and Rose makes clear that the study of gender and friendships is rife with challenges. Foremost among these is that even the scholars who design and carry out these studies cannot help but see the world through gendered lenses (Bern, 1993). Deeply held personal views about the direction and magnitude of gender differences may make them seem larger than they really are (Deaux, 2000). Thus, the potential for bias is great, and as Bukowski points out, there are serious reasons to hope that both men and women continue to pursue these questions in hope of the most balanced perspective. Also, the complexity of studying gender and relationships cannot be underestimated, because gender may relate not only to the frequency with which children engage in particular behaviors but also to the types of social contexts they select, which will in turn have a great influence on interpersonal processes (Zarbatany, McDougall, & Hymel, 2000). Gender likely also has a significant impact on the meaning and the developmental significance of social behavior and social relationships; interpersonal processes may unfold differently and be related to...

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