BACKGROUND:Boosting student motivation is an important goal, as it fuels effective learning and collaboration in school. Motivation develops through both personal beliefs and environmental influences. While peers make up much of students' social world, they have received less attention than teachers. Articles in this special issue explore the complex and dynamic ways peer relationships are intertwined with student motivation. AIMS:This commentary synthesizes key findings from the special issue around two themes: (1) how peer relationships and motivation influence each other, and (2) how multiple aspects of the peer context jointly shape students' motivational development. SAMPLES AND METHODS:We focus on 8 articles in the special issue that were diverse in age (from primary to university) and regions of the world (e.g., China, Germany, Israel, Netherlands, United States, and Turkey). Several studies used social network approaches, while others used longitudinal, qualitative, or mixed methods designs. RESULTS:Findings highlight the reciprocal and contextual dynamics connecting peer relationships and motivation. Yet, there was greater agreement affirming the positive and negative influences of peers on motivation. Whereas inconsistent findings regarding how aspects of academic motivation drive the formation of peer groups warrant future investigation. CONCLUSIONS:By centring on motivation, this special issue extends research on peer relationships in school. Broadly, there is a continued need to match distinct definitions and measures of peer relationships to specific aspects of motivation, while considering the potential for bidirectional and joint influences.

The current study investigated the associations of students’ social status (likeability, popularity, & unlikability) and teacher student relationships with their academic engagement and achievement. Cross-sectional analyses were conducted using self-report and peer nomination data from 996 students (398 fifth graders in elementary school & 383 seventh graders in middle school). Likeability was positively associated with GPA and achievement scores, unlikability was negatively associated with students’ behavioral engagement, GPA, and reading achievement, and the relation of popularity with students’ engagement depended on their teacher-student relationships. Disliked seventh graders reported lower engagement and GPA than disliked fifth graders, with these effects mediated by their teacher-student relationships. The results demonstrate the importance of considering peer and teacher relationships jointly to understand early adolescent academic adjustment.

The transition to college presents challenges for students as they form new peer relationships while experiencing varying degrees of belonging within the college community. This study investigated with cross-sectional social network analysis how self-reports of residential program and classroom belonging associated with social and academic networks among a sample of first-year college students that, controlling for each other, residential program belonging but not classroom belonging was significantly associated with students' social and academic networks. Additionally, after accounting for other factors, underrepresented minority students, particularly Black and multiracial students with low residential program belonging, were more likely than White students to hang out with peers across the broader residential college community. Findings highlight the importance of students' sense of belonging for relationships with peers in the transition to

BACKGROUND:There are many ways to leverage support from friendships, and it is important for how students engage with learning in the classroom. Further, friendships are embedded within the larger classroom peer group, which might have different norms for prosocial or disruptive behaviour. Few studies have examined how friends support or deter engagement within the context of competing influences from classmates and popular peers. AIMS:This study investigated how early adolescents' classroom friendships were related to their engagement (behaviour, emotion and peer help-seeking). Moreover, whether these associations depended on classmates' and popular peers' behavioural norms. SAMPLE:Participants were 824 fifth and sixth graders (52% girls, 48% boys, 43% White, 30% Black, 6% Hispanic, 6% Asian and 16% multiracial or other) from 46 classrooms in the United States. METHODS:We used multilevel modelling to examine the associations between students' friendship experiences (best friend quality, reciprocated friendships, social network centrality and prestige), peer group norms (prosocial and disruptive) and students' engagement. RESULTS:Results showed that the quantity of reciprocated friendships was unrelated to all three types of engagement. However, engagement was positively associated with best friendship quality and with friendship centrality (i.e., being well-connected to many friends). Students' prestige, or being highly desired as a friend, did not diminish behavioural engagement when popularity norms favoured prosocial behaviour. CONCLUSIONS:Findings suggest not all aspects of friendship experiences are equal. For engagement, it is important for students to feel like they have friends in class and to draw attention to the prosocial behaviour of popular peers.

We investigated to what extent adolescents' classroom peer ecologies play an indirect role in explaining the associations between teacher-student relatedness (TSR) in the fall and classroom engagement in the spring. The classroom peer ecology variables were friendship cohesion, prosocial behavior and norms, and peer support. Participants were 869 fifth and sixth grade students (52% girls, 48% boys; 42% White, 30% Black, 6% Hispanic, 6% Asian, 14% Multiracial, 2% Other) in 44 classrooms. We used multilevel structural equation models to assess the within and between classroom indirect effects of peers on the associations between TSR and classroom engagement. At the classroom-level, TSR was associated with greater adaptive help seeking with peers via prosocial popularity norms. At the individual-level, TSR and behavioral engagement were indirectly associated, via prosocial behavior. Additionally, TSR was indirectly associated with all three engagement outcomes through peer support. Findings suggest that multiple aspects of adolescents' peer relationships provide unique assets for their classroom engagement.

The transition from primary to secondary school is often associated with an increase in behavioral disengagement, which undermines students' academic development. Prior studies examined the average development of behavioral disengagement across school transitions. This study examined how students' peer status in primary school and ability track in secondary school relate to trajectories of behavioral disengagement. We followed n = 1564 students who transitioned to secondary school across three time points: February/March, and May/June in students' final year of primary school and January/February, roughly 6 months after students transited to secondary school. Latent Growth Curve Analyses showed that on average, behavioral disengagement increased, but this increase mostly occurred before transitioning to secondary school. Peer status and track related to students' initial levels of behavioral disengagement, but not to their development in behavioral disengagement over the transition. Specifically, students who were viewed as more popular by peers, and students who ended up in the lowest track showed more behavioral disengagement in primary school, whereas students who were more accepted by peers were less disengaged in primary school.

This study draws on basic psychological needs (BPN) theory to investigate multiple ways that perceived relatedness is important for understanding students' help-seeking behavior in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. Participants were 590 undergraduates (38% women; 65% European American, 24% Asian/Pacific Islander, 11% underrepresented minorities) who were enrolled in engineering coursework. We used structural equation modeling to examine the independent and interactive associations of students' BPN satisfaction (competence, relatedness, and autonomy) with their help-seeking behavior. Findings indicate that strong relatedness with both the instructor and peers are uniquely and differentially associated with specific types of adaptive help seeking (oriented to learning) and maladaptive help seeking (avoidance or asking for the answer), whereas competence and autonomy primarily explained differences in maladaptive types of help seeking. Moreover, many of these associations were dependent on students' relatedness with their instructor. Additional multigroup analyses revealed that instructor relatedness was especially critical for understanding women's help seeking. Results indicate that experiencing relatedness in college STEM programs-particularly positive relationships with instructors-is crucial for students' adaptive help seeking in difficult courses, while minimizing their maladaptive help-seeking behavior.

IntroductionAttaining social success is a significant concern during early adolescence. The characteristics that youth believe will bring social success are known to change over time and vary across contexts, especially over the transition to middle school.MethodsThe analytic sample included 614 students (52% girls, 48% boys; 53% Black, 47% White) from the Midwestern United States. At yearly intervals during grades 6-8, participants completed self-report surveys assessing their endorsement of five characteristics (sincerity, academic responsibility, dominance, disingenuity, athleticism/attractiveness) that described peers in their grade who have lots of friends and get along well with others (i.e., social success). The sample included students who attended the same school from kindergarten-eighth grade (K8) and students who made a transition from an elementary to a middle school after 6th grade (ESMS).ResultsMultigroup longitudinal growth models revealed some concerning trends over time. For both ESMS and K8 students, their endorsement of sincerity decreased, their endorsement of disingenuity increased, and their endorsement of athleticism/attractiveness was high and stable. ESMS students' endorsement of academic responsibility decreased over time and their endorsement of dominance showed increasing trends. K8 students' endorsements of academic responsibility and dominance were stable. However, across contexts, compared to the other characteristics, sincerity was most often ranked the highest.ConclusionsThe findings highlight that some changes in students' beliefs about social success may be unique to students who experience a school transition whereas others may be developmentally normative. Implications for the education of young adolescent students are discussed.

We investigated the associations between students’ perceptions of their teachers’ management of peer relations (TMPR) and two facets of the peer ecology: perceptions of peer support and the behaviors of popular peers (responsibility and rebelliousness). Participants were 1,031 fifth graders nested within 50 elementary school classrooms. Early adolescents in our sample were majority White and varied in socioeconomic status. A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that TMPR was a unique component of adolescents’ classroom context. Multilevel modeling indicated that TMPR is positively associated with supportive peer interactions and perceptions that responsible peers are popular. Additionally, TMPR was associated with weaker endorsements that rebellious peers are popular. Findings underscore the importance of teacher practices that are attentive to peer relationships as well as the promise of developing intervention efforts in this area.

Recent research on intergroup contact theory has emphasized the potency of cross-group friendship for reducing prejudice. Evaluating this claim requires consideration of competing friend influence and selection processes. Few studies have jointly tested these mechanisms and often only in limited, majority/minority group contexts. In this study, the authors articulate several mechanisms linking friendships with intergroup attitudes and test them in a diverse U.S. context (two large high schools with significant representations of multiple ethnoracial groups). The analysis involves a longitudinal network model of friendship and attitude coevolution. The findings indicate that ingroup friends influenced intergroup contact attitudes (ICAs) over time, while more open ICAs promoted selection into cross-group friendship. By contrast, effects of cross-group friendships on ICAs were limited to White students with Black friends. These findings suggest that the effect of intergroup contact is overstated in the context of friendship and that more focus should be paid to understanding other friendship dynamics.

This study used peer nominations to identify who students ask for help in class. We describe the level of friendship affiliation that students' share with their peer helpers, and their classroom behavior reputations. Participants were 1037 fifth (49%) and sixth (51%) graders with varied gender and ethnic-racial backgrounds (51% girls; 43% White, 29% Black, 6% Hispanic, 6% Asian, 17% multiracial and other). We used multilevel modeling to examine how peer helpers and teachers’ help were related to changes in peer help-seeking. Teacher help was related to higher adaptive and lower expedient help-seeking. Peer academic reputation was related to changes in expedient help-seeking. When students asked higher achieving non-friends for help this was positively related to expedient help seeking, whereas this association was weaker among friends and best friends. Teachers need to explain how and when to seek help from peers. High achieving peers can reinforce classmates’ requests for expedient help.

This special issue serves as a "Call to Action." It shows how research on peer relations can be used to expand our knowledge about critical social forces and concepts including race, socioeconomic status and inequality, culture, genders, refugee status. It poses a challenge to peer researchers. We can use our variables and methods to promote our understanding of what it means to grow up in particular social circumstances.

Parents and friends are important influences on adolescents' academic outcomes. We examine whether and how adolescents' social networks compensate for or enhance the effects of their parents' education on academic outcomes. Among a large ethnoracially diverse sample of high school students in the Southwestern (N = 2,136) and Midwestern (N = 1,055) United States, results from network autocorrelation models showed that higher levels of mother and father education were related to greater academic self-efficacy and engagement and higher aspirations, expectations, and grade point averages at both schools. Friends' parents' education levels were positively associated with adolescents' academic aspirations, expectations, and grade point averages across all of the models; higher levels of friends' parents' education were related to greater academic self-efficacy across all models, except for mothers in the Southwest; and friends' fathers' education levels were positively related to adolescents' academic engagement for students in the Midwestern school only. There were no significant interaction effects between parents' and friends' parents' education levels in predicting academic outcomes. Differences in the distribution of parental education across ethnic-racial groups shaped the implications of the model for adolescents' academic adjustment. Findings highlight the impact of educational opportunity across generations in shaping academic inequities.

This study examined longitudinal associations between early adolescents' school friendship stability, instability, and network size and their perceived social adjustment. The final sample consisted of 430 early adolescents residing in seven Midwestern schools (52% female, 47% Black, 42% White, 5% Hispanic or Latinx, and 6% Other). School friendship stability, instability, and network size were assessed via students' peer nominations of their same-grade friendships collected midway through their 7th and 8th grade years. Students also self-reported on several measures of social adjustment (their social satisfaction, social confidence, and school belonging). Results indicated having new friendships and having a larger friendship network at school were each more predictive of early adolescents' perceived social adjustment than was having maintained friendships or a consistent friend group within this context. However, school friendship stability consistently predicted greater perceived school belonging, whereas having a primarily new friend group and/or having lost more or most of a prior friend group predicted lower levels of this perception. Having lost school friendships was not predictive of early adolescents' social adjustment except when losses composed a significant proportion of their school friendship network (i.e., they had lost more or most of their school friendships from the year before). These findings provide valuable insights about peer friendship dynamics and social adjustment during a life stage critical to social development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The goal of our article is to consider the intersection of the peer ecology and teacher practices for students' academic motivation. We begin by reviewing two perspectives that explain why and how peers matter for students' motivation. First, the quality of peer relationships and interactions provide affordances for social support. Second, peers are socializing agents, so the content of peer interactions matters for the development of students' achievement beliefs, values, and goals. Within each of these theoretical frameworks, we discuss three kinds of peer relationships: friendship, social status, as well as the culture of support and norms that characterize the classroom peer group. Throughout, we consider classroom contextual factors that explain why peer relationships matter for students' motivation and school adjustment. This sets the stage for the key goal of our article, which is to review evidence from the last ten years linking teacher practices to aspects of the classroom peer ecology that are important for students' motivation in school. We conclude with a discussion of implications for educators and important directions for future research.

Ethnically and racially diverse schools provide students opportunities to socially interact with both same- and cross-ethnic peers that can shape their sense of belonging within a school. This study investigates the extent to which same- or cross-ethnic friends influence feelings of school belonging in two large, diverse U.S. high schools (total N = 4,461; 9th-12th grade; 49.6% girls). Employing a longitudinal social network analytic approach, using stochastic actor-oriented modeling, this study found that students become more similar or stay similar to their same-ethnic friends, but not cross-ethnic friends, with no clear indication that students select friends based on similar levels of belonging. These novel findings highlight how feelings of school belonging are fostered through sociability in same-ethnic friend groups. Implications for interventions and other approaches to enhance school belonging are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).