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Children in classrooms: peer status, status distribution and mental well-being

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  • Östberg, Viveca

Abstract

This study focuses on social relations in school classes and their importance for mental well-being in middle childhood in a Scottish city. The aspect of social relations under study is peer status and both the individual's own status position and the status distribution of the school class as a whole was considered. The number of children analysed was 13,932 and the number of school classes 524. The results show a clear association at individual level: the higher the status position the more uncommon is malaise. This is true both when malaise is reported by the teacher and by a parent, for both boys and girls and irrespective of the number of friends. The association was also generally present within school. It exists regardless of grade, type of school and class size. Furthermore, a minority of the classes had a more compressed status distribution and here malaise was less common in all status positions. This was especially the case when the school class did not contain marginalized children. Consequently, that some children are marginalized in the group indicates problematic conditions for the persons in question but also for the other group members.

Suggested Citation

  • Östberg, Viveca, 2003. "Children in classrooms: peer status, status distribution and mental well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 17-29, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:56:y:2003:i:1:p:17-29
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Brolin Låftman, Sara & Östberg, Viveca, 2006. "The pros and cons of social relations: An analysis of adolescents' health complaints," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 611-623, August.
    2. Almquist, Ylva B. & Brännström, Lars, 2012. "Childhood Peer Status and the Clustering of Adverse Living Conditions in Adulthood," Working Paper Series 1/2012, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    3. Louise Gerharda Maria van Rijsewijk & Beau Oldenburg & Tom Augustinus Benedictus Snijders & Jan Kornelis Dijkstra & René Veenstra, 2018. "A description of classroom help networks, individual network position, and their associations with academic achievement," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-22, December.
    4. Roberto Baiocco & Valeria Verrastro & Lilybeth Fontanesi & Matteo Pio Ferrara & Jessica Pistella, 2019. "The Contributions of Self-Esteem, Loneliness, and Friendship to Children’s Happiness: The Roles of Gender and Age," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(4), pages 1413-1433, August.
    5. Östberg, Viveca & Modin, Bitte, 2008. "Status relations in school and their relevance for health in a life course perspective: Findings from the Aberdeen children of the 1950's cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 835-848, February.
    6. Mary-Anne Holfve-Sabel, 2015. "Students’ Individual Choices of Peers to Work with During Lessons May Counteract Segregation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(2), pages 577-594, June.
    7. Almquist, Ylva B. & Brännström, Lars, 2014. "Childhood peer status and the clustering of social, economic, and health-related circumstances in adulthood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 67-75.

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