Speaking of Friendship: Middle Class Women and Their Friends

by Helen Gouldner, Mary S. Strong

Overview

Speaking of Friendship provides an in-depth look at the friendships of middle-class women. It explores the details of their everyday experiences with making and keeping friends from the beginnings of casual acquaintanceship to the cultivation of close friends and confidantes. The importance women attach to having friends is seen in the determined search they undertake to replace friends from whom they are periodically separated by residential mobility, job switches, and other major changes in their lives. Based on interviews with seventy-five middle- and upper-middle-class women between the ages of thirty and sixty-five, this unique sociological study reveals a kaleidoscope of friendship experiences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313250682
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/11/1987
Series:	Contributions in Women's Studies , #80
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.62(d)
Lexile:	1280L (what's this?)

About the Author

HELEN GOULDNER is Dean of the College of Arts and Science and Professor of Sociology at the University of Delaware.

MARY SYMONS STRONG is an editorial consultant and the former editor of Transaction Magazine.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Beginnings: Prefriendship and Getting Acquainted
Friendship: Its Substance
The Extraordinary Relationship
Breakdowns, Repairs, and Endings
Postscript
Bibliography
Index