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Children's friendships have been studied by a number of researchers and psychologists. The two studies that will be looked at will be those conducted by Bigelow and La Gaipa (1974) and by William Corsaro. Each study will be looked at in depth; this will include what was researched and also the methods that were used during the study. With this information, similarities and differences will naturally arise and give grounds for comparing and contrasting the two. When looking at the content of both studies there is a clear similarity and this is that they both had interest in the research of children's friendships. Although this similarity is present, the two studies developed on very different areas. The first study that will be introduced is that of Bigelow and La Gaipa (1974). The point of interest for this study was children's understanding of friendship and how this understanding could change throughout the stages of development (Brownlow, 2010 p. 242). This differs and contrasts the research interest of William Corsaro. Corsaro was interested in This assignment will compare and contrast the research of Mary Ainsworth and William Corsaro on children’s relationships. It will look at the differences and similarities in their work, and the relationships and who they were studying, also their methods of collecting data and how they analysed this. The assignment will also look at what they found out about relationships and how this has contributed to our early understandings of them. It will also look at some criticisms of the studies and the fact that some of the research was built on from previous researchers theories and some research from a developing area. There are a number of differences in the studies of Mary Ainsworth and William Corsaro’s work with children. Firstly Mary Ainsworth was interested in babies and the theory of attachment, whereas William Corsaro’s interest was in children’s understanding of friendships. Ainsworth’s interest in this area came after she joined John Bowlby’s research group at the Tavistock Clinic in London in 1950. After joining the group, and having her own ideas of Bowlby’s attachment theory, this led her to conduct her own studies starting in Uganda observing mothers and babies between the ages of 1-24 months. (Custance, 2012) In comparison childhood studies are a recent arrival and in general academics and researchers who had interests in this area would have to tie in their work to other areas of research. In the USA in the 1980’s, children and childhood began to be established as categories of study and a key figure in this developing area was William Corsaro. Interview with William Corsaro (2010) Friendship means different things to different people in different cultures. Friendship is also different from other kinds of relationship such as love, family and professional. The influential power on people’s behaviour, style, ideas and life is dominant and remarkable and therefore worthwhile for scientific investigation. This essay will compare and contrast the academic research of three dominant and pioneer scientists on the development psychology discipline and especially in the field of children’s expectations and children’s understanding of friendship. It will show who and what was studied, what method was used, what did they find, what criticisms have been made and what conclusions were derived. Bigelow and La Gaipa (1974) psychologists and researchers of development psychology and Williamm Corsaro (1985), professor of Sociology at Indiana University and ethnographist, have made important contributions to the neglected and unheeded area of children’s friendship. They all aimed to investigate children’s friendships and the important role, which these friendships, play in children’s everyday lives. their studies were both based on the children’s experiences and on the children’s understanding of friendship but the key difference was that Bigelow and La Gaipa explanations were based on formal essays written by the children and that Corsaro explanations based on the observation of the children’s playing and socialization. Each research was drawn from entirely different methodological procedures, as both administered and analysed their studies with a completely different method. The difference was that Bigelow and La Gaipa were interested on general patterns (ignoring the individual component) while Corsaro was interested in a more individualistic understanding of the...