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Article Excerpt
This study investigated the effects of the peer social context and child characteristics on the growth of authority-acceptance behavior problems across first, second, and third grades, using data from the normative sample of the Fast Track Project. Three hundred sixty-eight European American and African American boys and girls (51% male; 46% African American) and their classmates were assessed in each grade by teacher ratings on the the Teacher Observation of Child Adaptation--Revised. Children's growth in authority-acceptance behavior problems across time was partially attributable to the level of disruptive behavior in the classroom peer context into which they were placed. Peer-context influences, however, were strongest among same-gender peers. Findings held for both boys and girls, both European Americans and African Americans, and nondeviant, marginally deviant, and highly deviant children. Findings suggest that children learn and follow behavioral norms from their same-gender peers within the classroom.
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Growth in antisocial behavior problems during middle childhood frequently augurs a future of low academic performance and extensive experience with the disciplinary structure of the school (Farmer, Bierman, & CPPRG, 2002; Sinclair, Pettit, Harrist, Dodge, & Bates, 1994). By the time students reach middle school and high school, low academic performance and experience with the disciplinary system can lead to a myriad of more serious problems, including dropping out, delinquency, depression, and other antisocial behavior (Ialongo, Vaden-Kiernan, & Kellam, 1998; Ensminger & Slusarcick, 1992). Although individual differences in antisocial behavior patterns are quite stable from early life onward (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006), not all early disruptive children grow into seriously delinquent adolescents: life experiences and contexts exert an impact on the trajectory of development for at least some students (Dodge et al., 2006).
The current study addresses the influence of the school social context (that is, directly measured peer behavioral norms) on change in student misbehavior across time, specifically how placement of young students into classrooms that vary in peer social norms might either increase or decrease their misbehavior across development. Uniquely, this study also attempts to disentangle the mechanism at work, contrasting whether children are learning norms of deviance from their same-gender peers versus other-gender peers or both and from male versus female peers or both. In other words, we consider whether girls are equally influenced by their female peers' norms of deviance and their male peers' norms of deviance and whether boys are equally influenced by female and male peers' norms of deviance. Furthermore, because not all students respond to a particular context in the same manner (Dodge et al., 2006), we also investigate which types of students (varying in deviant behavior) are most susceptible to the influence of peer context. We tested hypotheses regarding whether children's deviant behavior changes as the result of the sociocultural context in which children live, their individual dispositions, and the interaction of these factors. In other work, this perspective has been termed a "transactional developmental model" (Dodge & Pettit, 2003).
The Influence of the Peer Social Context on Behavior Problems
Despite the fact that children spend a great deal of time in their elementary school classrooms, research on causes of conduct problems has, until recently, focused more intensively on family structure, parenting styles, and the broader ecology of poverty as causes of antisocial behavior (e.g., Vaden-Kiernan, Ialongo, Pearson, & Kellam, 1995; Pearson, Ialongo, Hunter, & Kellam, 1994). More recently, a body of research examining the influence of school peer context on the growth of conduct problems in early and middle childhood has begun to emerge (Aber, Brown, & Jones, 2003; CPPRG, 1999; Thomas, Bierman, & CPPRG 2006; Henry, Guerra, Huesmann, Tolan, VanAcker, & Eron, 2000). Most relevant to the current study is the research concerning the influence of peers on delinquency and behavior problems, research that is relatively well developed with regard to adolescent delinquency (for a review, see Gifford-Smith, Dodge, Dishion, & McCord, 2005). This literature finds evidence for both self-selection of antisocial youths into antisocial peer groups (called homophily) and adverse influence of affiliation with antisocial peers on one's own antisocial behavior (Thornberry, Krohn, Lizotte, Smith, & Tobin, 2003). For example, among sixth- through eighth-grade students, exposure to higher levels of fighting and bullying within a child's peer group at Time 1 predicted increased fighting and bullying by that child at Time 2 in sixth-through eighth-grade students, after controlling for individual aggression at Time 1 (Espelage, Holt, & Henkel, 2003). Adolescents who affiliate with deviant peers are at risk for increases in multiple problem behaviors, including substance use, risky sexual behavior, arrest, and violence (Dishion, Eddy, Haas, Li, & Spracklen, 1997; Gifford-Smith et al., 2005).
The literature is less well developed as it applies to peer effects on the growth and development of behavior problems among elementary school-aged children. Evidence of peer contextual effects among elementary school-aged children has begun to emerge, however, in contrived play groups, natural settings, and intervention studies. Observational studies of contrived play groups have demonstrated dyadic- and group-level influences on the emergence and maintenance of aggression in those play groups, such that future aggression is more common in peer groups that are characterized by high levels of negative affect, conflict, dislike, activity level, and competition (DeRosier, Cillessen, Coie, & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, Price, Coie, & Christopoulos, 1990).
In more natural settings, peers have been observed to increase externalizing behavior during free play and classroom interaction. Among low-risk kindergarten boys and girls, exposure to externalizing-problem peers increased externalizing behavior among girls but not boys, independently of self-selection effects (Hanish, Martin, Fabes, Leonard, & Herzog, 2005). Barth, Dunlap, Dane, Lochman, and Wells (2004) found that among older elementary students (fourth and fifth graders), concurrent classroom levels of peer aggressive behavior were correlated with an individual child's level of aggression. These effects also occurred longitudinally. Using the same schools but not the same sample as the present study, Thomas, Bierman, and CPPRG (2006) established that cumulative exposure to peer aggression across three years predicted a child's level of aggression in third grade, statistically controlling for previous aggression. Using an even longer observation period, Kellam and his coauthors (1998) discovered that those highly aggressive first graders who had been randomly assigned to classrooms with elevated levels of aggression were at heightened risk of becoming even more highly aggressive in middle school. This was particularly true for boys.
Intervention studies, in which elementary school-aged children are brought together in newly formed groups, also provides evidence of peer-context influences. Aggressive third graders who have been randomly assigned to peer groups populated by even more aggressive peers increase their aggressive behavior across time. On the other hand, aggressive third graders who have been assigned to peer groups with relatively less aggressive peers decline in their aggressive behavior across time (Boxer, Guerra, Huesmann, & Morales, 2005).
The findings among elementary school children are not uniformly consistent with a peer-context influence hypothesis, however. Using a sample of children at various ages throughout elementary school, Henry et al. (2000) discovered that classroom norms about what should be directly influenced children's aggressive behavior, but the level of actual misbehavior in the classroom (what is) did not have an influence on individual children's aggressive behavior across time. The body of findings suggests that child characteristics (e.g., gender and initial level of aggressive behavior) might moderate the effects of exposure to deviant peer contexts. Resolution of this ambiguity inspired the current study. Furthermore, the question of which peers are important, or whether peers' norms are more influential if the peers match the gender of the child in question, remains to be resolved.
Mechanisms of Influence
Underlying the work on delinquency and conduct problems is the question of how peers in a classroom context might have an effect on an individual's behavior. Theories have focused on the impact of primary group socialization wherein children learn norms through the primary groups of which they are members. Thus, children learn...
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