Head teachers, peer effects, and student achievement

Han Feng and Jiayao Li

China Economic Review, 2016, vol. 41, issue C, 268-283

Abstract: Teachers can influence student achievement, not only directly, but also indirectly via peer effects. Based on a unique data set from a Chinese middle school (grades 7–9), this paper uses a student fixed-effects model to estimate peer effects for four core subjects (Chinese, Math, English, and Science) at the level of the class cohorts studying each subject. We find negative peer effects that are significant from both an economic and a statistical perspective. However, in the subjects taught by head teachers, who have more tools to manage students than do regular teachers, such negative peer effects disappear. Further investigation suggests that head teachers generate positive peer effects that override the negative ones.

Keywords: Head teacher; Peer effects; Student achievement; Chinese middle school (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H40 I21 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X16301377
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:41:y:2016:i:c:p:268-283

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2016.10.009

Access Statistics for this article

China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu

More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().