Connecting Feelings of School Belonging to High School Students’ Friendship Quality Profiles

Abstract

Utilizing a person-centered approach, the present study explored 614 adolescents’ reports of self-disclosure, help, conflict, and conflict resolution with a close friend to investigate variability in profiles of friendship quality, whether gender and gender homophily and ethnicity homophily of friends are associated with profile membership, and how the profiles relate to feelings of school belonging. A latent profile analysis revealed three profiles of friendship: an ideal friendship profile (25.57% of the sample), a realistic friendship profile (54.56%), and a somewhat problematic friendship profile (19.87%). Compared to adolescents in the somewhat problematic profile, female adolescents were more likely to have a realistic or ideal friendship profile than males. Adolescents with ideal and realistic friendship profiles reported the highest feelings of school belonging; those in the somewhat problematic profile reported the lowest school belonging. The advantages of attending to profiles that incorporate multiple dimensions of friendship quality to understanding the social and academic experiences of adolescents are discussed.