Best friends in adolescence show similar educational careers in early adulthood

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Abstract

The present study investigated the role of best friends in educational career development from adolescence to adulthood. Participants' (N = 476) reciprocal best friendships were identified at age 15, while their educational attainment was investigated in early adulthood (age 26), their intelligence (IQ) at age 13, and parental education, educational expectations and academic achievement at age 16. The results revealed that adolescent best friends ended up pursuing similar educational careers in adulthood. Furthermore, three kinds of partner-effects were found when adolescents' prior career behaviors were controlled for: (1) best friends' intelligence predicted adolescents' later academic performance; (2) best friends' parental education predicted adolescents' educational expectations; and (3) best friends' educational expectations predicted adolescents' educational attainment in early adulthood.

Highlights

► Adolescent best friends ended up pursuing similar educational careers in adulthood. ► Adolescent best friends reciprocally predicted each other's career development. ► Best friends had unique predictive power for adolescents' later career outcomes.

Section snippets

Life-span perspective for career development

Educational choices during adolescence play an important role in subsequent working careers and economic well-being. Not surprisingly, planning one's education and establishing successful educational and occupational careers are among the most important developmental tasks of adolescence and adulthood (Erikson, 1959, Savickas, 1999). Career development theories, such as the life-span theory of career development (Super, 1953, Super, 1980), social-cognitive career theory (Lent et al., 1994, see

Adolescent friendships and educational careers

Career development theories (Lent et al., 1994, Super, 1990, Vondracek et al., 1986) suggest that alongside individual characteristics environmental factors related to support and guidance also play a role in educational planning and academic attainments. There is also some empirical evidence to show that children and adolescents who come from less advantaged family backgrounds (Entwisle et al., 2005, Glasgow et al., 1997, Schulenberg et al., 1984, Weinger, 2000, Whiston and Keller, 2004) and

Aims and hypotheses

The present study investigated the following research questions. First, to determine the degree of similarity among best friend dyads, we first examined the extent to which adolescents who are best friends at age 15 resemble each other in IQ, parental education, academic achievement, and educational expectations during adolescence and the extent to which they show similar educational careers (i.e., educational attainment) also in early adulthood. We expected that best friends would not only

Individual Development and Adaptation (IDA) research program

The present study is part of the ongoing longitudinal research program Individual Development and Adaptation (IDA). The main IDA cohort, born in 1955, has been followed thus far from the beginning of grade 3 to age 49. All the children who received normal schooling and attended grade 3 in one Swedish midsized town were included in the study, while in the later data collections children who moved into the community were added to the cohort. The IDA sample is somewhat above the average of other

Similarity among best friends and non-friends

Our first aim was to investigate the extent to which adolescents who are best friends at age 15 show similar educational careers (i.e., educational attainment) in early adulthood and the extent to which they resemble each other also in IQ, parental education, academic achievement, and educational expectations during adolescence. To investigate this question, intraclass correlations were calculated separately for best friend dyads and for random non-friend dyads (see Table 1).

Discussion

The present study is among the first attempts to investigate whether adolescent best friends end up having similar educational careers in adulthood and whether they impact each other's career development from adolescence to adulthood. The results showed, first, that adolescents not only selected best friends on the basis of similarity in academic aptitudes but that best friends in adolescence also pursued similar educational careers in adulthood. Furthermore, the characteristics of best friends

Limitations and future directions

The strengths of the present study are the long follow-up from early adolescence (age 13) to early adulthood (age 26), and the application of both multilevel modeling and actor–partner interdependence modeling in seeking answers to the research questions. At the same time, this study is not without its limitations. First, as a sociometric measure was available only in adolescence, we were unable to investigate stability and change in best friendships from adolescence to young adulthood. Thus,

Conclusion

The present study found that adolescents not only selected best friends on the basis of similarity in academic aptitudes but that best friends in adolescence also pursued similar educational careers in adulthood. Best friends also reciprocally influenced each other's career development, suggesting that best friends have predictive power above adolescents' prior career-related characteristics for adolescents' later career outcomes.

Acknowledgments

The data collections have been supported by grants from the Swedish National Board of Education, the Swedish Committee for the Planning and Coordination of Research, The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, the Swedish Social Research Council, and Örebro County Council. Support for the preparation of this manuscript has been given by Nordfors (31426), the Academy of Finland (213486, 1210319, 7133146), and the Jacobs Foundation. Funding sources have had no role in the collection, analysis,

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