Interethnic Friendship Dissolution: A Study of School Class and Network Effects

• In Event: 534 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Peers and Social Networks

Abstract

The context wherein interethnic friends are made may function as shifting sands: When school class and network characteristics change, they may undermine interethnic friendships that were once built on them. Therefore, this study examines if changes in the ethnic composition of the classroom and friendship networks in class affect interethnic friendship dissolution. The analysis of 5,725 friendships of 2,276 adolescents in 186 Dutch secondary school classes at two time points shows that the majority of interethnic friendships still exists a year later, but that interethnic friendships are more likely to break apart in comparison to same-ethnic friendships because of lower friendship quality. When interethnic friends share (increasingly) fewer friends and experience (increasingly) more negative interethnic attitudes of popular peers in class, they are more likely to end their friendship, but there is no evidence that interethnic friendship ends when the share of same-ethnic peers in class increases. In sum: once high-quality interethnic friendships are formed and supported by their direct environment, they are stable friendships and not merely “the next best thing” in absence of same-ethnic peers.

Author

• Sanne Smith, Utrecht University