Journal of Adolescence 1998, 21, 69–82 Friendship expectations among immigrant adolescents and their host peers GABRIEL H ORENCZYK AND M O SH E TATAR This study investigated differences in friendship expectations between immigrants in early and middle adolescence and their Israeli-born peers. Israeli newcomers from the former Soviet Union and their non-immigrant classmates were asked to rate behavioural characteristics of peers according to the extent of their import- ance for friendship, and also to assess the importance of these characteristics as friendship expectations of members of the other group. Results indicate that immi- grants assign greater importance than their host counterparts to all aspects of friendship expectations (help and assistance, status, similarity, and avoidance of harm). Immigrants also tend to view their host peers as expecting more of their friendship in terms of status and similarity, whereas host adolescents perceive the help and avoidance functions of friendship to be a strong factor in the friendship expectations of their immigrant counterparts. Immigrants’ friendship expectations were found to be correlated with social distress, especially among early adolescent girls. The results are discussed in terms of the functions of friendships and friend- ship expectations in the immigrants’ adaptation process, and of institutional differ- ences in allocation of immigrants to integrated or segregated classrooms.  1998 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents Introduction The importance of social support and friendship relationships at the various stages of inter- cultural migration has frequently been stressed. As pointed out by Searle and Ward (1990) and Ward and Searle (1991), extensive literature has shown social support to be positively correlated with psychological well-being during cultural transitions, as well as negatively correlated with the incidence of psychiatric symptoms among immigrants. It would seem that immigration conditions produce far-reaching physical, personal, familial and social changes in the immigrant, thus increasing the self’s needs for re-organization, re-evaluation and re-adjustment. During adolescence, friendships may serve as a major context for the negotiation and re-definition of personal and social identities among immigrants (Weinreich, 1983). This claim is consistent with the ample evidence showing the centrality of friendship within the adolescent’s experience. In Hartup’s words, “friendships are among the most prominent features of the social landscape during adolescence” (1993, p. 5). It has been noted (Fine, 1981; Duck, 1986) that friendships fulfil important tasks facing the adolescent. Friendship tends to serve cultural functions as a means for the transmission of information and codes about the normative expectations of society and culture, providing much of the Reprint requests and correspondence should be addressed to G. Horenczyk, School of Education, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel 91905. 0140-1971/98/010069+ 14/$25·00/0/ad970130 1998 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents