Friendships at college should not be underestimated, as they can play a significant role in how students perform academically and socially, a new study has found.
Previous studies on the importance of peers have examined the broader role that peers play in student life, often focusing on their social influence.
The new study by Dartmouth College in the US examines individual friendships at college, how students benefit academically and socially from such networks, and how such networks reflect a student's race and class.
The research analyses and visually maps the friendship networks of 67 students, by looking at the role that friendship groups play in a student's life and the density of ties that they share with friends.
Janice McCabe, associate professor at Dartmouth, found that student friendships can be classified into three types of networks: tight-knitters, samplers and compartmentalisers.
Tight-knitters have one dense group of friends, where nearly everyone knows each other, and their network resembles a ball of yarn. Most of the tight-knitters were students of colour (Black or Latino).
Tight-knitters referred to their friends as family and relied on each other socially, researchers said.
Academically, their friends could also be supportive and helpful. However, they also had the potential to pull each other down, if they lacked academic skills and motivation.
The potential for such negative influence reproduced race- and class-based inequalities, researchers said.
Compartmentalisers have two to four clusters of friends, who do not know each other, and their network resembles a bow tie, according to the study.
Compartmentalisers had separate clusters of friends: one or more for studying and one or more for having fun, with a good balance between the two.
They tended to be white and from the middle class, and relied less on their friends to succeed in college than tight-knitters.
In addition to having academic and social clusters of friends, Black and Latino compartmentalisers also had a cluster of friends that helped them with race- or class-based marginality.
Samplers have one-on-one friendships rather than groups of friends, with friends from different places remaining unconnected to each other, and their network resembles a daisy.
They were independent and did not rely on their friends for a sense of belonging; they were often socially isolated.
Samplers were academically successful without the help of their friends. Samplers came from a range of race and class backgrounds.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, students are quite savvy in recognising that friends can distract them and in strategically using friends to help them improve their academics. The most successful strategies, however, differ by network type," said McCabe.
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