Despite the recent technical and theoretical advances in the investigation of children's social relations, the inherent complexity of these methods may prevent their easy integration into the classroom. A simple and effective tool can be valuable for teachers who wish to investigate students' social realities in the classroom. Therefore, the…

Relationships between measures of sociometric status (SMS) and the behavior of preschool children were investigated. SMS was assessed through use of a comprehensive ranking technique that obtained data on each child from every other child in the sample. Measures of SMS included number of first nominations received (as "best friend"),…

A stable, ordered dominance hierarchy was found via observational and sociometric methods for a group of 13-year-old boys during a five-week summer camp. This group structure was formed early in camp and was stable across settings, time, and types of dominance interactions. The hierarchy correlated significantly with the rank-orderings bed…

Examined communication in the family and peer systems in relation to children's sociometric status, measuring turn-taking skills and utterance types for 43 preschoolers during interactions with mothers, fathers, and peers. Rejected-status children demonstrated turn-taking styles that included irrelevant turns, interruptions, simultaneous talking,…

The effects of class size, classroom organization, and grade on friendship choice and clique formation were examined using cross-sectional and longitudinal sociometric data. Classroom characteristics affected friendliness and popularity, incidence of cross-sex friendships, number of social isolates per class, and number and size of cliques.…

Two studies of nursery school children examined the relationship between friendships and sociometric judgments of social status. (Author/BB)

Generally, role-taking research has focused on the development and correlates of role taking in children. To explore role taking in the relatively overlooked population of young adults, a sociometric instrument, the Peer Role-Taking Questionnaire (PRTQ), was developed and used to measure perceived role-taking behaviors. The results were compared…

This paper investigates the formation and evolution of friendship cliques among preadolescent youths. An understanding of these patterns can aid teachers in influencing social relations and the behavior of their students. Two sets of sociometric data were collected to analyze children's friendship cliques. The relationship among the variables of…