Parent-Adolescent Relationships: Anticipations and Dyadic Interactions During the Transition to High School

• Main Author: Kear, Emily
• Other Authors: Lollis, Susan
• Language: en
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Parent-Adolescent Relationships; High School Transition; Dyadic Interactions; State Space Grid Analysis
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10214/2854

The purpose of this thesis was to examine parent-adolescent relationships during the transition to high school. Fourteen parent-adolescent dyads from two Canadian cities completed the study. At pre-transition (Time 1) and post-transition (Time 2) to high school, each dyad was video-recorded engaging in a conversation together about various topics related to the school transition. Content analysis was conducted to explore parents’ and adolescents’ pre-transition anticipations of how their relationship would be in high school. State space grid analysis was used to investigate whether there were changes in the structure or emotional content of parent-adolescent dyadic interactions between pre-transition and post-transition to high school. Results showed that parents and adolescents expressed relationship anticipations of stability, change, or uncertainty. Additionally, no statistically significant differences were found in the structure or emotional content of parent-adolescent interactions, suggesting that the high school transition does not appear to disrupt how parents and adolescents interact together. === Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS)