Is it the School of Fish or the Size of the Pond that Matters?

• In Event: 2484 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 25. Theoretical Perspectives in Education

Abstract

While there is considerable evidence for peer and other reference group effects in education, the extent to which such effects can be explained by relative comparison processes of students' educational performance by teachers has yet received only minor attention. Concerned with teacher recommendations for grammar school, this paper examines reference group mechanisms that work independently of students' achievement, effort and other individual traits. Using choice experiments, it can be shown how the individual probability for a recommendation depends on the size of the reference group. Moreover, the explicit modeling of the interdependence implied in the comparison process using spatial econometrics, reveals a social competition effect: The number of recommended peers in one's class reduces the individual propensity for a grammar school recommendation.

Authors

• Christoph Thomas Zangger, University of Zurich

• Sandra Gilgen, University of Bern