Profiles of Childrens Classroom Relationships and Their Association to Peer Social Competence

The nature of children’s peer relationships, usually investigated in terms of mutual friends and/or mutual antipathies, is critical to their social functioning and adjustment. Recently, Olsen, Parra, Cohen, Schoffstall, and Egli (2012) offered a comprehensive framework for studying children’s peer relationships as all possible dyads within classrooms, using both friendship and antipathy nominations. This present research extended this work by systematically considering a more complete profile of all the classroom relationships of each third-sixth grade child and comparing these profiles to social functioning, including: children’s self-ratings of social competence and peer optimism, and peer nominations ofsociability, showing respect, overt and relational aggression, and passive withdrawal. Results indicated that a 4-cluster solution best fit the data, (Befriending, Disregarding but Liked, Disliked, and Disliking), and these groups differed on social functioning measures. These findings help establish links between the configuration of a child’s relationship types and other levels of social functioning