Different levels of social organization in the formation of anti-school attitudes among adolescents

This article analyzes student pro-school/anti-school attitudes on different levels and explores their relation to educational outcomes. We examine the individual level, school level, and clique level predictors (clique is defined as a tight social group within a class social network). Cliques were identified using special software called Kliquefinder. We use multi-level regression approach on a sample of 7300 students from 104 public schools from St.Petersburg. Our findings show that: 1.) Socio-economic differentiation of Russian schools does not lead to a polarization of pro-school/anti-school attitudes in different types of schools; 2.) The polarization of attitudes emerges and is maintained at the clique level; and, 3.) Clique attitudes have a significant impact on educational outcomes (net of a student’s socio-demographic characteristics and individual attitudes).