Same-gender intimate friends in Chinese girls’ romantic adventures in a boarding school context

Abstract

Friendship and romance are two popular topics amongst children. In children’s romantic adventures, same-gender intimate friends always play a significant role. Since romance in childhood is constructed as an inappropriate topic in the Chinese schooling context, there is a limited number of studies that can offer an in-depth understanding of Chinese children’s experiences of same-gender intimate friendships and romantic adventures at school. This article aims to close this gap by using ethnographic data collected in a rural primary boarding school in China to present how Chinese girls’ same-gender intimate friendships and their romantic adventures interweave together.