Influences of Group Behavior and Social Background on Grade Distributions within School Contexts.

Increasing competition for grades in high schools has raised concerns about inequitable distributions of this key academic reward with implications for students' future educational and, thus, occupational careers. We use data from a multi-cohort nationally representative study containing student surveys and school transcripts to examine how individual characteristics, those of classmates, and those of schoolmates influence the grades students receive. Consistent with previous studies we find that students' cognitive skill, behaviors and course placements are strong predictors of their grades throughout high school. We also find that, net of their own characteristics, students taking courses with a larger percentage of others enrolled in lower-level math courses or reporting behavior problems tend to receive lower grades throughout high school, while those taking honors English receive higher grades. These differences in group course taking patterns account for much of the positive influence of classmates' social class on grades. The influence of schoolmates' cognitive skill, behavior and social background on individual students' grades was minimal. These results suggest that the allocation of academic rewards in high schools may reflect larger societal distributions of economic resources. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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