TY - JOUR
T1 - Peer effects of low-ability students in the classroom
T2 - evidence from China’s middle schools
AU - Huang, Bin
AU - Zhu, Rong
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - This paper examines the causal effects of the proportion of low-ability students in the classroom on the academic performance of regular students, exploiting random assignment of students to classes within middle schools in China. We show that the share of students in a class who are low achievers has a significant negative impact on the academic achievement of regular students in the seventh grade. The peer effects are heterogeneous along their achievement distribution, with the strongest adverse impact at the bottom end but no discernable impact at the top end. In contrast, there is no evidence that low-ability students influence any part of the achievement distribution of regular students in the ninth grade. Therefore, peer effects in academic outcomes can vary with the length of regular students’ exposure to the same group of low-ability classmates. We further show that the differences in peer effects of low-ability students in seventh and ninth grades are driven by the adjustments of students’ friendship formation and learning environment when approaching the completion of middle school.
AB - This paper examines the causal effects of the proportion of low-ability students in the classroom on the academic performance of regular students, exploiting random assignment of students to classes within middle schools in China. We show that the share of students in a class who are low achievers has a significant negative impact on the academic achievement of regular students in the seventh grade. The peer effects are heterogeneous along their achievement distribution, with the strongest adverse impact at the bottom end but no discernable impact at the top end. In contrast, there is no evidence that low-ability students influence any part of the achievement distribution of regular students in the ninth grade. Therefore, peer effects in academic outcomes can vary with the length of regular students’ exposure to the same group of low-ability classmates. We further show that the differences in peer effects of low-ability students in seventh and ninth grades are driven by the adjustments of students’ friendship formation and learning environment when approaching the completion of middle school.
KW - Academic achievement
KW - Low-ability students
KW - Peer effects
KW - Random assignment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084418409&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP170100718
U2 - 10.1007/s00148-020-00780-8
DO - 10.1007/s00148-020-00780-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85084418409
VL - 33
SP - 1343
EP - 1380
JO - Journal of Population Economics
JF - Journal of Population Economics
SN - 1432-1475
IS - 4
ER -