An Investigation of third graders' friendship charecteristics and their self-esteem regarding of some variable at secondary schools

ABSRACTAN INVESTIGATION OF THIRD GRADERS? FRIENDSHIPCHARECTERISTICS AND THEIR SELF-ESTEEM REGARDING OF SOMEVARIABLE AT SECONDARY SCHOOLSGülşen BÜYÜKŞAHİN ÇEVİKMaster Thesis, Department of Educational SciencesAdvisor: Assistant Prof. Dr. Meral ATICIJune 2007, 114 PagesThe aim of this study was to identify the friendship characteristics of thirdgraders at secondary schools. Students? self-esteem was also examined regarding someof the friendship characteristics.This study was carried out with 532 students attended high schools at centraldistrict Adana province. Data were collected by ?Friendship Relation Questionnaire?and ?Coopersmith Self Esteem Inventory?. Chi-square test, one-way anova andindependent sample t test were used to analyse data.The findings of this study indicated that most of the students have more than 10and between two and four close friends. So the number of close friends was smallerthan the number of friends. Boys had more close friends than girls. Most of the studentsalso had boy friend/girl friend. Students usually met their friends at school and privatecourses. Also, some of the students had romantic relationships.Students reported that their conflicts with their friends were mostly caused byhaving different opinion. Most of students were happy with relationships with theirclose friends. Over the half of students stated that their parents intervened relationshipwith their friends. Girls mentioned more parents intervention than boys did. Motherswere mostly responsible for this intervention.There was no significant difference on students self esteem in terms of genderand the number of close friends, while self esteem scores of students differed accordingto the status of having boy/girl friend, romantic relationship and parent intervention.Keywords: Friend, Friendship, Self Esteem.