Date of Award

7-2000

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Art

First Advisor

Pamela Nickels

Second Advisor

Anita Sankar

Third Advisor

Dale Hallemeier

Abstract

Student alienation is a complex and difficult experience for adolescents. One factor that counteracts alienation is peer acceptance. Often the changing of schools makes it difficult for adolescents to be accepted by their peers. This lack of peer acceptance often brings on feelings of loneliness. This study sought to determine if changing schools had a significant effect on student loneliness. Twenty mobile, or new, middle school students were compared with 26 stable students, who had been at the middle school since the beginning of their sixth grade year, to see if changing schools had a significant effect on student loneliness. The instrument for this causal-comparative study was the Children's Loneliness Questionnaire (CLQ), a self-administered, 24-question survey. Mobile students scored significantly higher on the loneliness scale than stable students. This may indicate that mobility is a possible at-risk factor for student loneliness.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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