Gender Differences in Social Relationships and Social Support of School Children

The objective of the current study was to investigate the gender differences in social relationships and social support of school children. Total 165 (65 Males and 100 Females) school children participated in the study from different four senior secondary schools of Punjab. The age of the subjects ranged between 15 to 18 years with a mean age of 16.96 years. Social Relationships Scale and The Interpersonal Support Evaluation List have been used to collect data for social relationships and social support respectively. The results indicated no significant gender difference on overall social relationship and six dimensions of social relationship including parents, peers, siblings, teachers, relatives and strangers. However, a significant difference has been observed on the friend dimension (P < .01), being males on the higher side. Similarly, males also scored significantly higher on perceived social support (P <.05) than females. The results confirm the notion that females perceive low social support not only at higher stage of life, but this difference is rooted in their childhood and adolescent period also.