Macintyre, Helen Charlotte;
(2022)
Understanding school mealtimes as contexts for children's peer relations and adjustment to school.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Informal school mealtimes are highly valued by children as time to spend with friends and may be key sites for peer relationships, social development and associated adjustment outcomes. However, this context-specific social experience has been little studied despite recent erosion of opportunities for children to socialise freely and concerns that this threatens their wellbeing. AIM: To make a detailed observational study of children’s informal social experience in ‘open’ mealtime settings to examine their value for peer relationships and adjustment. SAMPLE: Systematic Observations (SOs)/Questionnaires: focused on 105 children (45 girls) from one Year 5 class in four schools. Videos: focused on three boy and four girl pairs (14 children). METHODS: SOs involved coding 2652 instances of interaction analysed to provide a broad description of mealtime social experience and allow examination of associations with questionnaire measures of peer relationships and School Liking. Mealtime videos were analysed using a Grounded Theory approach to examine relationship processes embedded in interactions. FINDINGS: Children were socially engaged in almost 75% of observations. Interactions were mainly with own class, own gender peers. Mealtime groups included networks of best friends. Peer acceptance and friendship security predicted mealtime engagement. No associations were found with School Liking. Fifteen relational processes were identified involving children ‘moving towards’ peers (e.g. Being mutually responsive) or ‘away’ from them (e.g. Marginalising or Targeting). Connections with friendship/peer acceptance are proposed. Relational processes were intertwined with interactions topics/activities involving peer culture, sharing information about lives, negotiation of mealtime rules and organisation. CONCLUSION: Open school mealtimes are contexts for experiencing and learning about peer relationships via a rich variety of conversational interactions. Findings underline the importance of 1. Observing peer relations in-action to understand relevant social mechanisms 2. Planning mealtimes with understanding that they can be significant sites for children’s current and future social functioning.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Understanding school mealtimes as contexts for children's peer relations and adjustment to school |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2022. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| Keywords: | school mealtimes, primary school, children, peer relations, school adjustment, social development |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Education, Practice and Society UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10144069 |
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