SOCIAL SUPPORT PROCESSES IN EARLY-CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIP - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF ECOLOGICAL CONGRUENCES IN ENACTED SUPPORT

Examined congruences between children's friendships and classroom soci al ecologies in three distinct settings, and poses that such congruenc es or social adaptations are aptly characterized as a process of enact ed social support; i.e., an interpersonal transaction involving the re duction or evasion of stress. Data were derived from Corsaro's recent ethnographics of children's friendship and peer culture in a Universit y Preschool (Corsaro, 1985) and Head Start center (Corsaro, 1994), and from Rizzo's (1989) ethnography of friendship development among first -grade children. Despite vast differences across settings, the nature and activities of children's friendships appeared consistently linked with specific organizational features in their life-worlds and in this way may constitute significant interpersonal and individual adaptatio ns to that world. In this view, friendship is best seen not as a stati c entity which children appropriate in a consistent fashion, but as a general and malleable concept which they modify and use in a collabora tive fashion to address shared psychosocial concerns. Findings are rel ated to research on the link between perceived and enacted support, an d on the interplay between relational and social support processes.