Early Adolescent Social Status and Academic Engagement: Selection and Influence Processes in the United States and China

This research evaluated the role of high-status peers in youth's academic engagement. Youth (mean age = 12.7 years) in the United States and China (N = 934) made social status (i.e., sociometric popularity, perceived popularity, and admiration) nominations of their peers in the fall and spring of their first year of middle school. They also reported on their academic engagement at these two time points. The academic engagement of peers that youth nominated as high in sociometric and perceived popularity, but not of peers they admired, was predictive of youth's own academic engagement over time. Notably, this effect was evident over and above any initial similarity youth had with high-status peers they nominated (e.g., youth tended to nominate peers as high in sociometric popularity when they were similarly academically engaged to youth). It also did not differ in size in the United States and China. The results underscore the importance of high-status peers in youth's academic engagement in two countries that differ in terms of their cultural and educational systems. Educational Impact and Implications Statement This study highlights the importance of high social status peers to youth's academic engagement during early adolescence in the United States and China. Because youth's academic engagement becomes more similar over the course of the school year to that of the peers they personally like and think are popular, consideration should be given to either (a) how to couple such aspects of high social status with high academic engagement or (b) how to uncouple them from academic engagement all together.