This literature review analyzes current and past research surrounding inclusivity in the classroom and how it affects children's social and emotional development. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of teachers fostering an inclusive environment within their classrooms. This paper touches on peer interactions, the effects of rejection…

Being rejected by peers has devastating consequences for a child's future social-cognitive development. It is therefore important to investigate factors that contribute to childhood peer rejection. In doing so, the present review specifically focused on sociometric status, a concept that refers to a child's position within the peer group (e.g.,…

In hypothetical playmate preference tasks, obese figures are rarely picked up as friends. This study aims to observe what happens in real life and examine the relationship between body-size and social status in children. Four-hundred and fourteen children aged 5, 7 and 9 years were given a sociometric test. The Body Mass Index (BMI) of each child…

Belonging is emerging as an important concept in contemporary early childhood curricula, and calls have recently been made for belonging to be critically interrogated and further theorized. This article explores how belonging was operating for an infant in Australian family day care by looking at an episode that took place between the infant, a…

A growing body of literature indicates that childhood emotion regulation predicts later success with peers, yet little is known about the processes through which this association occurs. The current study examined mechanisms through which emotion regulation was associated with later peer acceptance and peer rejection, controlling for earlier…

This study examined whether children's biased self-perceptions of peer acceptance are associated in a linear or curvilinear fashion with aggression, whether associations are moderated by peer rejection status, and whether associations apply uniquely to reactive aggression. Children in the 4th through 7th grades completed a self-report measure on…

This study presents a novel task examining young children's affective responses to evaluative feedback--specifically, social acceptance and rejection--from peers. We aimed to determine (1) whether young children report their affective responses to hypothetical peer evaluation predictably and consistently, and (2) whether young children's responses…

Research connecting children's understanding of mental states to their peer relations at school remains scarce. Previous work by the authors demonstrated that children's understanding of mental states in the context of a faux pas--a social blunder involving unintentional insult--is associated with concurrent peer rejection. The present report…

This research examined two pathways through which depressive symptoms contribute to low social status (i.e., neglect and rejection) within the peer group over time: (a) depressive symptoms promote socially helpless behavior and consequent neglect by peers; and (b) depressive symptoms promote aggressive behavior and consequent rejection by peers.…

Two simulation studies examined the effect of peer group rejection on 7 and 9 year old children's outgroup prejudice. In Study 1, children (n = 88) pretended that they were accepted or rejected by their assigned group, prior to competing with a lower status outgroup. Results indicated that rejected versus accepted children showed increased…

Objective: This study investigated the impact of parental attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms on the peer relationships and parent-child interaction outcomes of children with ADHD among families completing a randomized controlled trial of parental friendship coaching (PFC) relative to control families. Method: Participants…

Background: Genetic risk for depressive behavior may increase the likelihood of exposure to environmental stressors (gene-environment correlation, rGE). By the same token, exposure to environmental stressors may moderate the effect of genes on depressive behavior (gene-environment interaction, GxE). Relating these processes to a peer-related…

This study examined the effects of peer group rejection and a new group's norms on 7- and 9-year old children's intergroup attitudes. Children (N = 82) were rejected or accepted by an initial group, then accepted by a new group that had a norm of inclusion versus exclusion towards others. Results showed that rejected compared with accepted…

Objective: Children with ADHD experience peer problems that may place them at risk for adverse outcomes. Using a short-term longitudinal design, this study links specific behaviors to peer functioning in groups of previously unfamiliar children with ADHD. Method: The participants were 268 children with ADHD who took part in an intensive summer…

This study examined the effects on 6- and 8-year old children (n = 160) of rejection versus acceptance by an initial group, the reason for the rejection or acceptance (personal versus category-based), and the norms (inclusion versus exclusion) of a new group to which the children were assigned, on their negative affect and attitudes towards the…