IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/edfpol/v2y2007i4p376-394.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Boys Named Sue: Disruptive Children and Their Peers

Author

Listed:
  • David N. Figlio

    (Department of Economics, University of Florida and NBER)

Abstract

This article proposes an unusual identification strategy to estimate the effects of disruptive students on peer behavior and academic outcomes. Because boys with names most commonly given to girls may be more prone to misbehavior as they get older, they may become differentially disruptive in school. In elementary school there is no relationship between names and boys' behavior, but on transition to middle school, a large gap emerges in behavior between boys with names associated with girls and other boys. Using boys' names as an instrumental variable, I utilize data on names, classroom assignment, behavior problems, and student test scores from a large Florida school district in the school years spanning 1996–97 through 1999–2000 to directly measure the effects of classroom disruption on peer performance. I find that behavior problems are associated with increased peer disciplinary problems and reduced peer test scores, indicating that disruptive behavior of students has negative ramifications for their peers. © 2007 American Education Finance Association

Suggested Citation

  • David N. Figlio, 2007. "Boys Named Sue: Disruptive Children and Their Peers," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 2(4), pages 376-394, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:2:y:2007:i:4:p:376-394
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/edfp.2007.2.4.376
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2009. "New Evidence about Brown v. Board of Education: The Complex Effects of School Racial Composition on Achievement," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(3), pages 349-383, July.
    2. Alejandro Gaviria & Steven Raphael, 2001. "School-Based Peer Effects And Juvenile Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 257-268, May.
    3. William N. Evans & Wallace E. Oates & Robert M. Schwab & William N. Evans & Wallace E. Oates & Robert M. Schwab, 2004. "Measuring Peer Group Effects: A Study of Teenage Behavior," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 13, pages 232-257, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. David J. Zimmerman, 2003. "Peer Effects in Academic Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 9-23, February.
    5. Joshua D. Angrist & Kevin Lang, 2002. "How Important are Classroom Peer Effects? Evidence from Boston's Metco Program," NBER Working Papers 9263, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Edward P. Lazear, 2001. "Educational Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 777-803.
    7. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704.
    8. Caroline Hoxby, 2000. "Peer Effects in the Classroom: Learning from Gender and Race Variation," NBER Working Papers 7867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kang, Changhui, 2007. "Classroom peer effects and academic achievement: Quasi-randomization evidence from South Korea," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 458-495, May.
    2. Helmuth Cremer & Dario Maldonado, 2013. "Mixed oligopoly in education," Documentos de Trabajo 10500, Universidad del Rosario.
    3. Vincent Boucher & Yann Bramoullé & Habiba Djebbari & Bernard Fortin, 2014. "Do Peers Affect Student Achievement? Evidence From Canada Using Group Size Variation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 91-109, January.
    4. Fertig, Michael, 2003. "Educational Production, Endogenous Peer Group Formation and Class Composition – Evidence from the PISA 2000 Study," IZA Discussion Papers 714, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Eric D. Gould & Victor Lavy & M. Daniele Paserman, 2009. "Does Immigration Affect the Long-Term Educational Outcomes of Natives? Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(540), pages 1243-1269, October.
    6. Xu Lin, 2010. "Identifying Peer Effects in Student Academic Achievement by Spatial Autoregressive Models with Group Unobservables," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 825-860, October.
    7. Adriaan R Soetevent & Peter Kooreman, 2005. "Social Ties within School Classes: The Roles of Gender, Ethnicity, and Having Older Siblings," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 373-391, Autumn.
    8. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2013. "Under Pressure? The Effect of Peers on Outcomes of Young Adults," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 119-153.
    9. d'Este, Rocco & Einiö, Elias, 2021. "Beyond Black and White: The Impact of Asian Peers on Scholastic Achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    10. Clark, Andrew E. & Loheac, Youenn, 2007. ""It wasn't me, it was them!" Social influence in risky behavior by adolescents," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 763-784, July.
    11. Bayer, Patrick & Pintoff, Randi & Pozen, David E., 2003. "Building Criminal Capital Behind Bars: Social Learning in Juvenile Corrections," Center Discussion Papers 28511, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    12. Kling, Jeffrey & Liebman, Jeffrey, 2004. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects on Youth," Working Paper Series rwp04-034, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    13. Andrew J. Hussey & Debjani Kanjilal & Albert A. Okunade, 2013. "Effects of Peers and Social Environment on Adolescent Psychological Well-Being," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 3(2), pages 69-83, February.
    14. Cai, Xiqian & Fan, Qingliang & Yuan, Congying, 2022. "The impact of only child peers on students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Adriaan R. Soetevent, 2006. "Empirics of the Identification of Social Interactions; An Evaluation of the Approaches and Their Results," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 193-228, April.
    16. Zhang, Hongliang, 2016. "The role of testing noise in the estimation of achievement-based peer effects," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 113-123.
    17. Joshua D. Angrist & Kevin Lang, 2004. "Does School Integration Generate Peer Effects? Evidence from Boston's Metco Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1613-1634, December.
    18. Eric D. Gould & Victor Lavy & M. Daniele Paserman, 2004. "Immigrating to Opportunity: Estimating the Effect of School Quality Using a Natural Experiment on Ethiopians in Israel," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(2), pages 489-526.
    19. Godlonton, Susan & Thornton, Rebecca, 2012. "Peer effects in learning HIV results," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 118-129.
    20. Hsieh, Chih-Sheng & Lin, Xu, 2017. "Gender and racial peer effects with endogenous network formation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 135-147.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    disruptive students; peer behavior; behavior problems; peer performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:2:y:2007:i:4:p:376-394. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.