Zhu, Y (2018) A social-oriented instrumental friendship between children in a rural boarding school in China. In: BSA Annual Conference 2018: Identity, Community and Social Solidarity, 10 - 12 April 2018, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK.
Abstract
Based on the data collected through a five-month ethnographic fieldwork for a current PhD study – explore Primary Year 5 children's understandings and experiences of friendship with peers in the context of a rural boarding school in China, this paper focuses on analysing how does the sociocultural background of collectivism in China extend children's understandings of friendship from an intimate interpersonal relationship between individuals to be a social strategy, which is sophisticatedly used to contribute to the feeling of solidarity and harmony between all peers, especially classmates, who are highly involved in daily routines as a group. This paper will start with some examples about the social-oriented instrumental friendship happened between children in Central School A. Then, it will deliver the analysis the reasons that contributed to the construction of this type of friendship from two perspectives. The first perspective focuses on the relations between the sociocultural background of collectivism, social and value-oriented performance evaluation systems amongst children, and children's emphasis on the importance of the instrumental aspect of friendship. The second perspective shows how do the school organizing systems contribute to the ideas of 'group' and 'a sense of belonging', which ideas are understood as one fundamental reason that brings the idea of 'cooperation and competition for group's interest' into the function of developing social-oriented instrumental friendship with as many as peers in same groups.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
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| Divisions: | School of Education |
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| Date Deposited: | 15 Jun 2021 18:19 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Aug 2021 09:56 |
| URI / Page ID: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/14156 |
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