Analysis of a double-layered support system

This analysis focuses on the support functions of a social network consisting of the families, educational staff, and peers of 33 adolescent females. These women were lower-class school dropouts who joined the Israeli Army and--toward the end of their service--participated in a six-month intensive program of educational upgrading. The program was administered by the Israeli Army and operated by female soldiers close in age, but not in social background and education, to the program's participants. Data were collected by a semi-structured interview and analyzed in terms of the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral support functions of the social network. Analysis shows that (1) whereas the educational staff and the peers provide the young women with all three types of support, their parents' is limited to some aspects of emotional support, and is conditional (to success); (2) the educational staff also induced the peers to act as supporters; and (3) as a result, the participants had access to a "double layer" of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral support, and benefited from being both recipients and providers of support, in the coping-enhancing conditions of sociocultural and situational similarity.