"Friends or Enemies? "－Peer Relationship of Girls In Residential Group Care
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Lau, Lai-Yeen
Abstract
Adolescence is a developmental stage when young people learn to live independently and be responsible for selves. Peer relationships play a crucial role in this stage. In Taiwan, adolescents might be placed in the residential care system for various reasons. They are forced to interact with peers of difference backgrounds and experiences, and they are more likely to experience peer relationships different from those of schoolmates. Adolescent girls tend to express their emotions better than boys, and their experiences with peers are the focus of this study. This research aimed to study the peer relationships of girls living in residential institutions, to examine how they perceived friendships, interacted with each other, and saw each other as their friends.
Face-to-face interviews with six girls in three residential institutions in Northern Taiwan were done between May to June of 2011. These girls were placed under the “Child and Youth Welfare Law” or the “Child and Youth Sexual Prevention Act.” Findings indicated that girls and their peers could forge bonds likened to that of close relatives or even sisters. During placement, peers provided important support and encouragement to one another, allowed the interviewees to feel being concerned in the institutions. On the other hand, it is also found that the relationships between the interviewees and their peers in residential care were distant and unstable. It did not matter whether relationships with their peers were good or bad, the interviewees still hoped to keep in touch with them after they left the institutions. It is evident that to the interviewees valued peer relationships in placement very much.
Subjects
peers
peer relationships
adolescent girls
placement
interactive experience
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-100-R97330017-1.pdf
Size
23.54 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):5056ec6dd3a508cbb6e33288aeb66c82