ABSTRACT
Cross-sex friendship processes begun in early childhood such as friendship schema development and gender segregation continue in modified fashion in middle and late childhood. Even some of the early childhood cross-sex friendships themselves continue (Gottman, 1986). However, I am not aware of any systematic attempts to longitudinally track specific cross-sex friendships as they go from early childhood into middle childhood. Although the cross-sex friendship processes in middle/late childhood are similar to the ones in early childhood, there are also noticeable differences as cross-sex friendships transform to reflect and accommodate developmental changes experienced by the participants. For example, as suggested in the above quotation, same-sex friendship preferences begun in early childhood become much more pronounced in middle childhood as children separate into groups determined primarily by biological sex (Sroufe et al., 1993).
