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Peer Effects: An In-Depth Analysis, Lauren O. Dirago-Duncan

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

The social multiplier effect of peers has the potential to influence all members of a group through changing the outcomes of a single member and thus poses a strong, low-cost channel for increasing student performance. As such, peer effects are much studied in education and inform important policy decisions such as classroom composition, ability tracking, and magnet schools. These studies are often limited in scope to the contemporaneous period—how one’s peers affect them while they are around one another, but we should also be concerned with whether peer group continues to influence student outcomes after their inevitable separation. I use …