An Empirical Study on Children′s Peer Status Perception

The purpose of this study is to investigate children's perceptions of their own peer status and the variables that affect the perception. Four hundred boys and girls in grades five and six participated in this study. The participants were sampled from elementary schools located in two cities in Cheon-buk Province. Out of the 400 self-report questionnaires filled by the participants, 380 were used for the data analyses. The methods of analyses included basic descriptive categorical analysis (frequencies, means, percentages) as well as t-test, one way ANOVA, and multiple regressions. To summarize major findings from the analyses; first, a significant difference was found in children's aggression by father's job and mother's age, in children's popularity by school GPA, father's education, mother's education, and fathers job, and in children's isolation by father's age, father's education, mother's education, and father's job. Second, children's aggression was significantly dependent upon self-esteem, loneliness, family harmony, and family communication. Children's popularity was related with school grade, name satisfaction, body satisfaction, self-esteem, number of close friends, loneliness, family harmony family communication, parental love and acceptance, and perceived closeness to mother. Children's isolation was significantly associated with school grade, body satisfaction, self-esteem, number of close friends, loneliness, family harmony, family communication, parental love and acceptance, and perceived closeness to mother Third, according to the multiple regression analyses, it was found that highly aggressive children tend to report less family harmony, more loneliness, and a larger number of friends. Also, highly popular children tend to report less loneliness, larger number of friends, strong family harmony, and higher academic achievement. On the other hand, highly isolated children tend to perceive weak family harmony, more loneliness, and lower body satisfaction. Lastly, the overall peer status indicator depended significantly on family harmony, loneliness, self-esteem, academic achievement, body satisfaction.

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