Sex differences in social networks
coding were crucial for researchers to understand the child's involvement in a social activity, their
behaviour and the identity of others jointly engaged in the activity. The researchers did not speak to
children on the playground except on the rare occasion to clarify coding when the target’s activity
was ambiguous. To reduce order effects, pupil observations were counterbalanced with each
breaktime observation period beginning with the next child on the class list. Efforts were made to
ensure that all pupils were observed an equal number of times. There were a total of 7906 scan
observations, an average of 26.5 scans per child in the autumn and 37.5 scans per child in the
summer term.
Target child observations focused on the following dimensions: the nature of interaction
with peers, identity of peers that the target was interacting with, interaction with/presence of adults,
the target’s behaviour, the type of activity engaged in and the play network. Only two category sets
are relevant to this paper and are detailed here (see Blatchford et al., 2003 for further details of the
coding scheme).
Where children were deemed to be engaged in a social activity with peers, we coded the nature
of the activity as either ‘team-based’ or ‘non-team based’ and noted the play network. A target was
coded as engaged in a social activity when he or she was participating in physical and/or
communicative interaction or involved in a socially organised game or activity. For example, a child
that is standing alone as part of a game (e.g. the goalkeeper in a game of soccer), would be coded as
'social', whereas a child playing with a toy on their own would not be.
If the target was engaged in an activity that required children to cooperate as a team to compete
with another group of children, then they were coded as involved in a team based activity. Examples of
team based activities are football, basketball and other types of ball games, chasing and seeking games
(British Bulldogs, cops and robbers) and racing games (relays, individual-team races). All other
activities were coded as non-team based activities, for example, conversation, vigorous, sedentary or
fantasy play, skipping (jump rope), as well as a number of types of ball games.