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Convenor(s): Veronica Mobilio (Fondazione per la Scuola, Italy); Gianluca Argentin (University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy); Ilaria Lievore (Fondazione per la Scuola, Italy)
Presentation 3
Unequal Classrooms: The Joint Effects of Ability Peer Effect and Socioeconomic Composition on Academic Track Enrollment
Emanuele Fedeli, Moris Triiventi
University of Milan, Italy
The effects of peer abilities in education are central to understanding how the individual educational pathway is shaped by social environments. Although tradi- tional theories emphasize positive spillovers from high-achieving peers, alternative perspectives such as social contrast hypotheses highlight potential negative conse- quences for student motivation and self-concept. In addition, much attention has been devoted to the important role of parental socioeconomic background, but less attention has been paid to its interaction with ability-peer effects. This study aims to investigate how the effects of peer ability and the socioeconomic composition of classmates influence the enrollment of students on the path to university when they switch to lower secondary schools in Italy. The results show that the average effect of peer ability is negative, but the socioeconomic composition of the classroom plays a compensatory role. In addition to that it comes out that low achievers are more hit by the peer comparison.
