Gendered School Cultures as Limit-Situations: The Roles of Friendship and Friends in Challenging Gender-Normativity

Abstract

The effects of friends and friendships have been discussed in academic literature for decades and particularly from a social psychological perspective. Questions about how friendship dynamically affects a child’s development, what constitutes good and bad friendships and what, psychologically, friendships can accomplish in relation to positive mental health outcomes, have dominated the landscape of our understanding. Underpinning friendships and other intimate relationships, according to some psychologists, are good and secure child/carer attachments. Something one would assume to underpin parents who are supportive of their trans and gender diverse children, which is the focus in this paper.