Summary of research article - Essay Example

There is dire need to investigate the widespread and misleading conceptions regarding the adolescent life. Talai has carried out a research along with Kelvin Barclay and Kathleen Foley at the Park Royal School and the Royal Haven School in Quebec. The research was meant to study the nature and significance of friendship in the life of an adolescent as it is in the Western culture. Amit-Talai has emphasized that the friendship’s nature in the life of an adolescent reflects in his/her friendship as an adult, which adds to its value.

Amit-Talai asserts that various social and psychological factors that exist in the life of an adolescent influence the nature of friendship he/she enters into. It is quite common for the students to encounter a lot of changes when they are in the phase of secondary school. The onset of puberty inculcates drastic changes in the nature and attitude of both genders, on the physiological part. On the sociological part, adolescents assume much more responsibilities in school and home and also, in the workplace occasionally.

The adolescents also experience a shift in their relationships with their peers when they enter their puberty and gain the sense of sexuality. A vast majority of students feel a change in their learning tendency and the environment as well. Many families change their residence as the children move from childhood to adolescence. The change of location causes the adolescents to change their schools. However, it must be noted that the physiological and sociological changes brought about by the adolescence are not the only factors that play a decisive role in determining the structure of an adolescent friendship.

After conducting the research, Amit-Talai found that the rules in both the Quebec secondary schools that were involved in the study were too strict to allow the students time to socialize in an informal manner in their private lives. Such a lack of time to promote intimate informal relationships in the life of an adolescent significantly declines his/her tendency to maintain a healthy friendship, though the lack of time does not completely eradicate the friendship at all. According to Paine (cited in Amit-Talai 235), friendship is a “dyadic, confidential and personal relationship”.

There is a category of friends called as “just friends” that are indeed, the ““purest” form of friendships, voluntary and operating outside of any specific context, with no structural or cultural supports”. (Fischer 108 cited in Amit-Talai 235). However, the secondary students studied by Amit-Talai in her research express a blurred relationship of friendship in the sociological context. It is commonly thought of adolescents that their life is full of leisure as compared to that of the adults.

Amit-Talai says that there is no doubt in the fact that many adolescents do not work and only study, yet the school and related activities like homework consume a major portion of their time. “Adolescents who are not at work do not necessarily have more “free time” as a result” (Amit-Talai 237). Amit-Talai has also noticed a manifold increase in the number of working students in the secondary schools in Quebec since early 1975. In order to entertain their social concerns, many secondary school students work along with their studies.

Such social concerns include but are not limited to shopping, outing