Gender Segregation And Lonliness Related In Childhood

The present study tried to verify the gender segregation in children’s peer interaction in childhood, then to examine its stability and gender difference, at last to explored the function of peer acceptance, friend nomination and mutual friendship in the predictive relationship between gender segregation and loneliness.246children in an elementary school from the third grade and fourth grade, completed peer nomination, friend nomination, mutual friends and Children’s Loneliness Scale in2006and2008.The findings indicated that:1.The number of peer like-most nominations、friendship nomination and mutual friends from the same-sex peers were significantly higher than the number of those nominations from the opposite sex; but the other-sex peer received more peer like-least nominations.2.A11variables were significantly correlation in2year later. Take nomination difference between homosexual and heterosexual peer nomination, the repeated measures analysis showed there were significant main effect of time on all variables except negative nominations. The mean levels of all types of nominations at t2were significant higher than t1, and2years later, incremental number of same-sex peer nomination were significantly higher than heterosexual peers.3.There were significant gender differences in positive nomination, mutual friends, friends nomination in both direction at homosexual and heterosexual peers;4.Stepwise regression analysis showed that the main predictor variable of boys’ loneliness was the mutual friend nominations received from male classmates; while for girls’loneliness was friends nominations from the same sex. Girls got more number of nomination than boy with a steady and fast growth.5.For boys, mutual friends from boy at t1could significantly negatively predict its loneliness at t2, but no corresponding results conversely. For girls, on one hand, only fiends nomination from other girls at t1could significantly predict their loneliness, on the other hand, loneliness at t1couldn’t significantly predict the friend nominations.