Neighborhood Friends Research Articles

A Study on the Role of Advertisements in Instigating Pester Power in Children

The advertisements have a direct bearing on the socio-cultural,"m::*:li: academic, and psychological framework of the children. Constant watching of 1V programs and commercials affect child's social behavior. Behavior is referred to the way the child conducts oneself in his/ her social surroundings. Behavioral impact affects not only the child but also the associates and the environment of child's life, mainly comprising of the family, the school and the neighborhood friend, in terms of the shocks experienced by them. The study delves into identifying the impact of advertising on the social setup of child's world. The best way to understand the child's behavior is to look into the child's family and the social circle it is associated with The parent's responses and their opinions, give a true representation of the child's actual behavior. Hence the parents of the respondent children form a focal point of this study

Links between social network closure and child well-being: The organizing role of friendship context.

Third grade children (N = 404) and their mothers completed questionnaires and participated in interviews designed to identify children's friendships across multiple contexts, determine levels of social network closure for these friendships, and assess child well-being. Cluster analyses revealed distinct patterns in the contexts in which children's friendships were maintained. Closure was highest for children whose friendship clusters heavily represented relatives as friends and lowest when friends were from schools and the broader community. Intermediate levels of closure were observed for the clusters of neighborhood friends and friends from church and school. Both friendship cluster and, to some extent, ethnicity moderated associations between closure and indicators of well-being.

The Social Context of Recovery

The findings of Stein et al.’s two-month longitudinal study regarding reactions, impairment and help-seeking following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, compel further exploration of the ways in which communal social functioning and individual social networking may serve either to reintegrate and reconnect community members or to pose complex challenges to the recovery process. Our commentary reflects our experience providing crisis intervention and disaster mental health services in the District of Columbia in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001, the anthrax contaminations of October, 2001, and the sniper shootings of October, 2002. For the District of Columbia, the impact of these tragedies must be considered in a social context whose characteristics include vast economic and educational disparity and chronic neighborhood violence. Social capital theory describes the phenomenon of bonding of like groups—social bonding that occurs at the family, neighborhood, and close friend level and among people who share demographic characteristics (Cullen and Whiteford 2001). These likenesses may create an “affinity group,” which we define as the phenomenon in which commonalities afford a mutually felt sense of belonging and may inform the interpretation of events for those within the group. Social capital theory also posits that bonding networks are key in information dissemination and the establishment of social and cultural norms. Thus, the concepts of bonding and affinity are determinants of trust that suggest mechanisms that should not be overlooked by preparedness planners and in the crafting of recovery interventions. With initial evidence of substantial distress in the New York City area following the September 11th attacks, Wave 2 of Stein et al.’s study (60-days post-event) found acute and localized distress to have substantially abated and to have become more evenly distributed across both rural and urban regions of the country. This study lends credibility to evidence of what the field has broadly termed the “new normal.” While initial shock and distress levels have subsided, there remains persistent, widespread distress that, while not diagnostically significant, is significant in terms of social functioning and adaptation (North and Pfefferbaum 2002). Psychiatry 67(2) Summer 2004 158

June Jordan: July 9, 1936-June 14, 2002

June Jordan once recounted her Cyrano de Bergerac-like early literary career in an interview that both illuminated the depth of her artistic and political concerns and revealed her youthful entrepreneurial skills. Interviewed by David Barsamian for Alternative Radio in October of 2000 Jordan related how the child poet June used to reinterpret the emotional needs of her neighborhood friends—whether they were falling in or falling out of love. She would then, for a small fee, construct an effective poem that conveyed their heart's desire. In some ways this is what poet, essayist, and activist June Jordan did so successfully all of her career. She opened herself to our society's social needs and to the yearnings of the heart, then transformed them, most usefully, into cries for justice and celebrations of the human spirit.

Navigating the Twists in the Road

Navigating the Twists in the Road

Immigrants' Urban Lives and Their Common-Villagers' Association in the High-growth Period

In the modern city, immigrants organize various social groups. The common-villagers' association (dokyo-dantai) is one of them. Some studies show that many such associations were organized for mutual support in the common-villagers' concentration area that formed in the process of their chain migration. Those studies have focused on the prewar city. But many of common-villagers' associations were organized in the high-growth period in the 1950s to 1970s. This paper presents a case of the Kagoshimaken-Eishikai, which consisted of emigrants of the Eishi settlement of Kamikoshiki Village, Kagoshima Prefecture, and which was established in Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, in 1967. The following summarizes the main findings.i) Through chain migration, Eishi emigrants concentrated in a particular area and in particular companies in Amagasaki City. However, due to intra-urban residential mobility and job changes there was a gradual tendency towards dispersal. ii) Many of them were (are) factory workers, and some of them worked on a two- or three-shift basis. Working hours were longer than now, especially in the high-growth period. In general, they were busy. iii) In Japan, the rate of private telephone ownersip was low before the 1970s. This was also true with these migrants. iv) Thus, the relationship among them in the period was somhwhat distant. They couldn't meet neighborhood friends frequently in their everyday lives. However, they wanted to reconstruct “intimate secondary relationships” and so class reunions were often held before the establishment of the Eishikai. But it was difficult for them to organize the common-villagers' association by themselves, because they didn't have the means to manage an association composed of hundreds of households. v) In 1963, an Amagasaki city council member, who was an immigrant of the same Koshiki-Shima islands, was elected. He wanted Eishi emigrants to support him in the next 1967 election, and so he helped them to organize the Eishikai. But the Eishikai didn't become an integrated supporters' organization, because some of the Eishi emigrants held alternative political view.

The relation between fifth and sixth graders' peer-rated classroom social status and their perceptions of family and neighborhood factors

Based on nominations of liked and disliked peers, groups of popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, and average fifth and sixth graders (mean age = 10.89 years) were identified and compared on their perceptions of family factors as well as on the discrepancy between self-reports of their own age and that of neighborhood friends. Relative to average peers, rejected peers were reported more likely to have experienced parental divorce, reported less supervision, and reported more authoritarian discipline. Compared to average peers, neglected peers reported playing with younger neighborhood friends. The findings underscore the need to examine linkages among classroom, family, and neighborhood contexts.

The relation between classroom social status and classmate likability, compromising skill, temperament, and neighborhood social interactions

Classmate likeability, compromising skill, and temperament ( n = 135) and after-school patterns of social interaction ( n = 101) were examined for third through seventh grade children who were identified by a binomial probability model as popular, rejected, neglected, or average in the classroom setting. Significant effects were obtained for each type of score. Compared to the other social status groups, popular children were the best liked and rejected children were the least liked; neglected and average children fell between these two extremes. Popular children had higher compromising scores than either rejected or average children, and neglected children had higher scores than rejected children. Compared to average children, rejected children had higher attention and rhythmicity temperament scores. Finally, popular and average children had more neighborhood friends than either rejected or average children, and meglected children had more younger neighborhood friends than did average children. Results are discussed in terms of models of peer social status.

The role of the indigenous nonprofessional in a community mental health neighborhood service center program.

The paper discusses methods for utilizing the particular styles and skills of indigenous nonprofessionals in a Neighborhood Service Center Program. The role of the worker as a neighborhood friend rather than as a junior caseworker, or junior community organizer is delineated. Some issues and problems in the use and development of nonprofessionals are presented.

The Narcotic Addict and "the Street"

IT IS a striking feature of the drug addict that when he speaks of his home, neighborhood friends and acquaintances, he often employs the phrase, "the street," suggesting the priority of peer activities as opposed to family relationships. Although this manner of speech is not solely indigenous to the addict world and, in fact, finds expression in criminal subcultures and, perhaps, other lower socioeconomic groups, it can provide certain clues to the understanding of the addict and some of the obstacles to his effective rehabilitation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the psychological significance of the street to the addict patient and its bearing on treatment. Nearly all addicts, while hospitalized, speak with some urgency of "returning to the street" upon discharge. The realities of the street both as they actually exist and as they appear to him combine to affect posthospital adjustment.