1-016 - Peer Processes and School Adjustment: Examining Classroom Variations and Contextual Factors

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Peer relationships are a salient part of the classroom context and important for students’ adjustment at school. Recent work has provided many insights into how friends interact with each other, how students select their friends, and peer influence at school. However, most work to date has looked at general processes across classrooms. Thus, we know little about how selection and influence and peer interactions vary in association with different contextual factors. The goal of this symposium is to move forward in understanding the variations of peer interaction and peer processes across classrooms. This is an important endeavor because such connections between the classroom context and peer relationships and how they operate together and influence student adjustment has important implications for educators who must manage peer ecologies in their classrooms and schools.

Three presentations take up this endeavor. The first presentation uses longitudinal data from 12 elementary schools in 27 classrooms of fifth grade students to examine how peer selection and influence processes vary by classrooms in relation to teachers’ emotional support with a focus on disruptive behaviors. The next presentation uses longitudinal data from 6 elementary schools in 22 classrooms of fifth grade students in two different classroom types (intervention classrooms and control classrooms) to examine positive peer influence on mathematics achievement. The third presentation uses bully/victim dyad data in 71 first, third, and fifth grade classrooms to examine the proportion of same- and cross-ethnic bullying and whether ethnic composition of the classroom moderates the prevalence of bullying.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Allison M Ryan, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Discussant

• Rene Veenstra, University of Groningen

Individual Presentations

• Peer Influence on Disruptive Behavior: Variations Across Classrooms - Presenting Author: Huiyoung Shin, Oklahoma State Univ; Allison M Ryan, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Scott D. Gest, Penn State Univeristy

• The Effect of Classroom Context on Peer Relationship Dynamics: When Can We Expect Peer Influence on Achievement? - Presenting Author: Dawn DeLay, Arizona State University; Cindy Faith Miller, Arizona State University; Linlin Zhang, Arizona State University; Laura D Hanish, Arizona State Univ; Carol L Martin, Arizona State Univ; Richard A Fabes, Arizona State Univ; Karen P. Kochel, University of Richmond; Kimberly Updegraff, Arizona State University

• Same – and Cross – Ethnic Bullying Among Elementary School Children - Presenting Author: Handrea A Logis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Scott D. Gest, Penn State Univeristy; Daniel Berry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign