Understanding spillover of peer parental education: Randomization evidence and mechanisms

Abstract

The educational background of peer parents is more than a proxy for peer quality. We utilize random classroom assignments in China middle schools to study the spillover of peer parental education on the student test score.Analyzing the China Education Panel Survey, we find a causal relationship between the average college attainment of classmates' mothers and a student's test score. Besides peer quality and teacher response, we identify the change in the mother's parenting style as a mediating factor. The parental responses (time, money, and parenting style) also differ by family background, leading to heterogeneous spillover on the test score.

Obesity contagion among classmates: Children's relation with each other regarding weight status, physical activity, and dietary intake

“…Thus, the ability distributions were identical across classes after a balanced assignment. The random nature of this institutional setting has been well recognized in recent peer effect studies ( Chung & Zou, 2020 ; Gong et al, 2019 ; Huang, 2019 ).…”

Female Classmates, Disruption, and Stem Outcomes in Disadvantaged Schools: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment

“…Columns (1) and (2) (columns (3) and ( 4)) report the estimated effect of the female share in the classroom for male and female students who reside in neighborhoods with postcode income below the median (above the median), respectively. Columns ( 5) and (6) (columns ( 7) and ( 8)) report the estimated effect of the female share in the classroom for male and female students who study in schools with percentile ranks below the median (above the median Notes: We use a mediation analysis in each panel and quantify the relative importance of each mechanism on explaining test scores in STEM subjects in grades 11 and 12 (Chung and Zou, 2020;Song, 2018, 2021). Notes: The table reports the estimated effects of the share of female classmates in grade 11 on students' occupation-related expected wages.…”

“…We find that a higher proportion of female classmates is associated with less disruptive behavior for boys and higher engagement for females, which suggests an increase in overall classroom learning productivity. Using a mediation analysis, we quantify the role of disruptive behavior and engagement in accounting for classroom gender composition effects (Chung and Zou, 2020;Song, 2018, 2021). In particular, we find that the impact of female peers that may be transmitted through improved classroom learning productivity (due to lower misconduct and disruption) accounts for up to 8% of the total gender composition effect on STEM performance.…”

Effects of Childhood Peers on Personality Skills

“…8 It also minimizes the reverse-causality channel from the target children's outcomes (in grades 4 to 6) 7 Random assignment is a common feature of primary and secondary education in China, which has often been used to study education peer effects in the literature. Examples include Hu (2018), Wang and Zhu (2019), Chung and Zou (2020), Huang and Zhu (2020), Wang (2021), Wang and Zhu (2021), and Zhao and Zhao (2021). 8 The catchment area for each school covers areas with tens of thousands in population, making it unlikely that parents knew each other to the migration decision of their peers' parents (in grade 1), and the effects of temporal shocks.…”