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Feasible Peer Effects: Experimental Evidence for Deskmate Effects on Educational Achievement and Inequality

By on November 6, 2023 in Articles

Tamás Keller, Felix Elwert

Sociological Science November 6, 2023
10.15195/v10.a28

Abstract

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Schools routinely employ seating charts to influence educational outcomes. Dependable evidence for the causal effects of seating charts on students’ achievement levels and inequality, however, is scarce. We executed a large pre-registered field experiment to estimate causal peer effects on students’ test scores and grades by randomizing the seating charts of 195 classrooms (N=3,365 students). We found that neither sitting next to a deskmate with higher prior achievement nor sitting next to a female deskmate affected learning outcomes on average. However, we also found that sitting next to the highest-achieving deskmates improved the educational outcomes of the lowest-achieving students; and sitting next to the lowest-achieving deskmates lowered the educational outcomes of the highest-achieving students. Therefore, compared to random seating charts, achievement-discordant seating charts would decrease inequality; whereas achievement concordant seating charts would increase inequality. We discuss policy implications.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Tamás Keller: HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Computational Social Science – Research Center for Educational and Network Studies, Budapest, Hungary HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Institute of Economics, Budapest, Hungary. TÁRKI Social Research Institute, Budapest, Hungary
E-mail: keller.tamas@tk.hu

Felix Elwert: Department of Sociology & Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
E-mail: elwert@wisc.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors thank Carlo Barone, Dorottya Baross, Steven Durlauf, Edina Gábor, Eric Grodsky, Judit Kerek, Gábor Kertesi, Gábor Kézdi, Andreas Kotsadam, Xinran Li, Károly Takács, Jeffrey Smith, and audiences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Chicago, ISA RC28 Spring Meeting in Frankfurt am Main, the Annual Meeting of the International Network of Analytical Sociologists (INAS) in St. Petersburg, the Meeting of the Economics of Education Association (AEDE) in Las Palmas, the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, and the European Research Network on Transitions in Youth (TiY) in Mannheim for valuable discussions. This research was funded by grants from the Hungarian National Research, Development, and Innovation Office (NKFIH), grant number K-135766; a János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, #BO/00569/21/9; the New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Culture and Innovation, #ÚNKP- 23-5-CORVINUS-149; and a Romnes Fellowship and a Vilas Midcareer Faculty Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Direct correspondence to Tamás Keller (keller.tamas@tk.hu) and Felix Elwert (elwert@wisc.edu).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Keller, Tamás, and Felix Elwert. 2023. “Feasible Peer Effects: Experimental Evidence for Deskmate Effects on Educational Achievement and Inequality” Sociological Science 7: 806-829.
  • Received: July 12, 2023
  • Accepted: May 2, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Peter Bearman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a28


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Gender Typicality and Academic Achievement among American High School Students

By on December 12, 2019 in Articles

Jill E. Yavorsky, Claudia Buchmann

Sociological Science December 12, 2019
10.15195/v6.a25

Abstract
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This study is the first to use nationally representative data to examine whether differences in gender-typical behaviors among adolescents are associated with high school academic performance and whether such associations vary by race or socioeconomic status. Using wave I data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and linked academic transcript data from the Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement study, we find that boys who report moderate levels of gender atypicality earn the highest grade point averages (GPAs), but few boys score in this range. As gender typicality increases, boys’ GPAs decline steeply. In contrast, girls who practice moderate levels of gender typicality earn slightly higher GPAs than other girls. These patterns generally hold across race and socioeconomic status groups.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Jill E. Yavorsky: Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina Charlotte
E-mail: jyavorsk@uncc.edu

Claudia Buchmann: Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University
E-mail: buchmann.4@osu.edu

Acknowledgements: This research uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. This research also uses data from the Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement study, which was funded by a grant (R01 HD040428-02, Chandra Muller, PI) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a grant (REC-0126167, Chandra Muller, PI, and Pedro Reyes, Co-PI) from the National Science Foundation. This research was also supported by grant 5 R24 HD042849, Population Research Center, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Health and Child Development. Opinions reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the granting agencies. We thank the reviewers and editor for their helpful comments. We also are grateful to Yue Qian, Paula England, Tom DiPrete, and participants in the Seminar Series at the Center for the Study of Wealth and Inequality at Columbia University and participants in the University of Michigan Department of Sociology Seminar Series.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Yavorsky, Jill E., and Claudia Buchmann. 2019. “Gender Typicality and Academic Achievement among American High School Students.” Sociological Science 6: 661-683.
  • Received: October 8, 2019
  • Accepted: November 13, 2019
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v6.a25


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