Friendship as Potential? The Recognition of Teenagers’ Peer Relationships at School

摘要

The starting point for this paper is that children and young people’s friendships have, significantly, been neglected as a communal resource. While the importance to teenag-ers of their friends and peers is widely recognized, their friendships are more often seen as a cause of risk behaviour than a resource with which risk could be prevented. Hence, the purpose of this theoretical paper is to challenge this predominant view by looking at teenagers’ spontaneous friendships as inclusionary potential. The paper deals with young teenagers’ friendships from the viewpoint of student welfare and preventive social work at school. It raises the question of how and with what teenag-ers’ wellbeing should be supported in their everyday living environments such as school. The paper introduces Finnish basic education as a site for the prevention of early youths’ marginalization, and studies how young people’s mutual relationships are commonly perceived at school. Drawing from the theories of recognition, it is then suggested that recognizing the meaning and practices of students’ friendship at school could advance their self-confidence, self-esteem and self-respect and hence, support better student wellbeing.