1. Objectifs

Intentions :
« The main goals of this study were to examine 1. whether there are developmental differences in friendship and peer relationships of individualist and collectivist elementary and high school age children, and whether, regardless of cultural background, idiocentric and allocentric children show patterns in their peer relationships that are similar to cross-cultural findings of individualism/collectivism; 2. whether developmental differences exist in the social networks of individualist (idiocentric) and collectivist (allocentric) children; and 3. whether social support from particular individuals in the child’s social network predicted self-esteem, and whether the importance of social support from these particular individuals differed between individualist (idiocentric) and collectivist (allocentric) children. » (p. 21)

Questions/Hypothèses :
- « It was therefore, hypothesized that French and English Canadians would be considered individualist and that ethnic minority groups in our samples would be considered collectivist. » (p. 21)
- « [...] the second hypothesis was that collectivist (allocentric) children would have peer relationships that are characterised by greater social support than individualist (idiocentric) children. In addition, the third hypothesis was that collectivist (allocentric) children would have less conflict in their peer relationships than idividualist (idiocentric) children. » (pp. 21-22)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
« Participants included 601 children between 9 and 18 years of age from two French-language elementary schools and one high school in the Laval area. There was a mean age of 13.12 years, SD=2.42. Participants were divided into two age groups based on their grade level: grades 4 through 6 (n=268, mean age= 10,78, SD=1.04) and grades 7 through 11 (n=333, mean age=15.08, SD=1.20). There were 268 boys and 299 girls. Information regarding gender was missing for 34 children. » (p. 25)

Instruments :
- General Information Sheet;
- INDCOL Scale (Hui, 1988);
- Network of Relationship Inventory (NRI; Fuhrman and Buhrmester, 1985);
- Revised Class Play (Masten, Morison + Pellegrini, 1985);
- Self-Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985b);
- Self-Perception Profile for Adolescent (Harter, 1988).

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

« Individualist cultures emphasize independence, self-reliance, self-expressiveness, and emotional detachment in most of their relationships, whereas collectivist cultures emphasize interdependence, cooperation, maintaining harmony, and strong emotional attachment. Based on these differences, a goal of this study was to investigate how the social relationships of children vary across age as a function of belonging to an individualist or collectivist culture. It was also a goal to investigate whether the self-esteem of individualist and collectivist children was differentially influenced by receiving social support from particular individuals in their social networks. [...] Participants completed a set of questionnaires during class-time on two separate occasions. Contrary to expectations, there was no difference between ethnic groups in terms of individualism/collectivism. Individualism/collectivism was, therefore, considered as a personality dimension (Realo, Allik + Valdi, 1997). As expected, collectivist children perceived their peer relationships to be more supportive than individualist children did. Collectivist elementary school children also reported fewer negative interactions in their peer relationships than individualist elementary school children. » (p. iii)