• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.73-82
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• 2016

Objective: This two-wave study examined stability in kindergarteners' friendship patterns over 5 months. Methods: Participants were 501 five-year-old children (262 girls and 239 boys) attending kindergartens in Seoul, Incheon, and Kyounggi provinces in Korea. Each child nominated three individuals as his/her friends in July, and again in December of 2013. Depending on the presence/absence of friendships and the mutuality of identifying friends, the children's friendship patterns were categorized into five groups: stable, fluid, loss, gain, and friendless. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, and chi-square tests. Results: Results revealed stability, as well as changes in friendship patterns, among kindergarteners over the 5-month period. The stable friendships, those that maintained the same friend(s) in both waves, was 43.7%, the fluid friendships, those that changed friends over the 5 month period was 18%, the gain friendships, those who had newly developed friends in wave 2 was 17%, and the loss friendships, those who had friends at wave 1 but lost friends at wave 2, was 9.8%. The friendless, those that had no friends in both waves, was 11.5%. Conclusion: Results showed that kindergarteners were capable of maintaining and making new friends over a 5-month period.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.53-63
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of the child-mother attachment and the child-father attachment (secure attachment, insecure avoidant and insecure disorganized attachment) on children's mutual friendships and mutual antipathy relations. The subjects consisted of 116 5-6 year old kindergarteners (64 boys & 52 girls) and they were asked to respond to the Attachment Story Completion Task by Bretherton & Cassidy (1990), based on the sociometric popularity postulated by Coie & Dodge (1988). Data were analyzed by the logistic regression analysis and the one-way ANOVA method and the Scheffe test in multiple comparisons analysis. The results concluded that 1)There were differences in terms of child-mother attachment and child-father attachment when it came to a child's mutual friendship. The secure child-mother and child-father attachment groups had more mutual friendships than the insecure attachment groups. 2)There were no differences in terms of child-mother attachment and child-father attachment when it came to child's mutual antipathy. 3) 78.0% of the mutual friendships were accurately classified as existence with respect to child-mother and child-father attachment.