Does a “bad apple” spoil the bunch? The impact of low-achieving students on non-cognitive outcomes

Li Li and Liqiu Zhao

China Economic Review, 2022, vol. 76, issue C

Abstract: This paper investigates whether the presence of low-achieving classmates affects the noncognitive outcomes of regular students in junior high school. Exploiting random assignments of teachers and students to classes, we show that having classmates who had ever repeated a grade in primary school improves students' mental health and social skills, and the positive peer effects are concentrated among students with a longer duration of peer exposure and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Mechanism analysis reveals that the improved teacher–student and student–student interactions contribute to the enhancement of noncognitive outcomes.

Keywords: Low-achieving peers; Noncognitive skills; Heterogeneous peer effects; Duration of peer exposure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D62 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:76:y:2022:i:c:s1043951x2200133x

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2022.101875

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