The pervasiveness of social media in adolescents' lives has important implications for their relationships. Considering today's adolescents have grown up with social media, research capturing their unique perspectives of how social media impacts their relationships is needed to increase understanding and help guide behaviors that nurture…

The integration of ethnic minority youth can only be successful if they are motivated to establish and maintain social relationships in important institutions such as school. At the same time, worries about negative stereotypes about one's ethnic group can undermine ethnic minority students' motivation to approach others. In the present study, we…

Peers may both promote conformity and discourage ambitious choices when students make educational decisions. Low socioeconomic status (SES) students may be more sensitive to outside influence than high SES students when making educational decisions. Considering the case of choosing between an academic track and a vocational track in Danish…

In contemporary ways of thinking about education there is an enhanced focus on individual students' results and less on students' collaborative processes for attaining good results. This may appear peculiar, given that the Swedish curriculum for the nine-year compulsory school states that students should be given opportunities to compose texts…

This study investigated characteristics associated with two kinds of peer victimization--bullying victimization and adversarial victimization--distinguished by different balances of power between the perpetrator and victim. Specifically, we examined whether bullying victimization (victim has less power than perpetrator) would be experienced to a…

Research on the big-fish-little-pond effect demonstrates that class-average achievement negatively affects students' academic self-concept via social comparison processes. The neighborhood-effects literature reports positive effects of advantageous socioeconomic neighborhood conditions on students' academic development via collective socialization…

Social comparisons with peers are important sources of self-development during adolescence. Many previous studies showed that students' academic self-concepts (ASC) form by contrasting one's own achievement with the average of one's class or school (the Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect [BFLPE]). Based on social comparison theory, however, we would…

Based on theories of emotion contagion and social appraisal in interpersonal affect transfer and the control-value theory of achievement emotions, the present study examined associations between students' perceptions of peer emotions and their own self-perceived emotions in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms. Data were collected from…

Students' positive experiences in schools positively predicts students' political trust. However, little research has examined how individual students' feelings of exclusion at their schools may relate to students' political trust. Moreover, how does an overall sense of exclusion from the school relate to political trust apart from individual…

Peer victimization is a common concern in adolescence that includes both relational (e.g., exclusion, rumor spreading) and overt (e.g., hitting, threatening) forms (Crick & Bigbee, 1998). Relational and overt peer victimization have shown to be differentially associated with depressive symptoms, with relational peer victimization showing a…

In Norway 5.8% of students report being bullied as much as three or more times a month [UDIR. 2021a. Student Survey 2020 [Elevundersøkelsen 2020]. https://www.udir.no/tall-og-forskning/finn-forskning/rapporter/elevundersokelsen-2020-nasjonale-tall-formobbing-og-arbeidsro/]. The present study investigates the likelihood of students being bullied…

This longitudinal study was initiated to assess the predictors of peer- and teacher-identified Chinese adolescent leaders. Participants were 764 8th grade (14.42 years, 348 girls) and 783 11th grade (17.67 years, 427 girls) students that completed two waves of data collection separated by 1 year. Prosocial behavior, aggression, and the interaction…

Prior research has found that student achievement is positively related to students' social standing in class. However, negative stereotypes about high academic achievers prevail among secondary school students, suggesting that higher achievers might be less well-integrated socially. These stereotypes especially target academically high-achieving…

This study explores what young Danish learners found anxiety-provoking or difficult in their English as a foreign language (EFL) classes. Participants (n = 32) were early and later starters (ages 8 years vs. 10 years) at two primary schools where children were not assessed in English. The qualitative inquiry aimed to examine what differences…

Background: Civic participation is a fundamental element of democracy; therefore, upholding and supporting civic participation, especially among the upcoming generation, is important. Political efficacy -- an individual's understanding of their capacity to participate in civic life -- has been found to exert an important influence on the expected…