Christoph Michael Müller

Does being assigned to a low school track negatively affect psychological adjustment? A longitudinal study in the first year of secondary school

Previous research suggests that the 1st year in secondary school for some students goes hand in hand with an increase in adjustment difficulties. One factor that might influence this process on an individual, compositional, and institutional level is the academic track a student attends. It was hypothesized that being assigned to a low-qualifying track predicts a stronger increase in adjustment problems than being assigned to higher tracks. A sample of 734 seventh-grade students from Switzerland attending 1 of 3 regular academic tracks or special educational classes participated. Pupils reported anonymously on their antisocial behavior, anger control problems, self-worth, and emotional distress. Multilevel analyses were performed, predicting end of seventh-grade adjustment by track controlling for initial adjustment and background variables. Students enrolled in the low-qualifying regular track increased significantly more than students from other tracks regarding their problems with global adjustment, antisocial behavior, and emotional distress.

Negative Peer Influence in Special Needs Classes--A Risk for Students with Problem Behaviour?.

Children and adolescents with aggressive and delinquent behaviours are often educated in special needs classes with others who exhibit the same kind of challenging behaviour. Beside the opportunities provided by this approach there are also risks, as several studies point to the problem of negative peer influence among this student population. Hence, in this article, potential risks of aggregating youth with behavioural difficulties in special needs classes are discussed and implications of the findings for practice and research are presented.

Susceptibility to Classmates’ Influence on Delinquency During Early Adolescence

Early adolescents vary in their susceptibility to peer influence on delinquency. However, it is still less clear which factors explain this variation and how these factors relate to each other. In this study, 10 factors that may moderate peer influence were investigated. A sample of 868 participants was followed across six occasions from seventh to ninth grade. Multilevel longitudinal models showed that descriptive norms among the classmates, based on aggregated self-reported delinquency, predicted individual delinquent behavior across time. When each factor was considered separately, the effect of classmates’ delinquency was stronger for males and adolescents scoring higher on impulsivity, risk tolerance, social dominance, cool appearance, unstructured spare time activities, and lower parental supervision. No moderation effects were found for age, self-worth, and social acceptance. In a model containing all significant moderators, only male gender remained significant, indicating boys’ higher susceptibility. Implications for theory and preventing negative peer influence are discussed.

Individual popularity, peer group popularity composition and adolescents' alcohol consumption

Previous studies have convincingly shown associations between popularity and adolescent drinking. This study examined whether the popularity composition of the peer group and the relative difference in popularity between adolescents and their peers are also associated with adolescent drinking. Participants were 800 adolescents (Mage = 14.73; SDage = 1.00; 51.6 % girls) from 31 classrooms who completed peer ratings of popularity and self-reports of alcohol consumption. Results showed that drinking was higher among popular than unpopular adolescents, higher among popular adolescents surrounded by less popular classmates, and lower in classrooms with more variability in popularity. Thus, beyond individual popularity, peer group popularity composition also should be taken into account when investigating antisocial and health risk behaviors in adolescence such as drinking.

Classroom Peer Influence From the Entire Class, Dominant Students, and Friends

Recent research indicates that the development of antisocial behavior among students is influenced by the behavioral characteristics of their classmates. However, not all peers in a given class may exert the same influence. Thus, we examined the extent to which individual development is predicted by the perceived proportion of all students with antisocial behavior in the classroom, socially dominant students, and friends. A short-term longitudinal study comprising 4 measurements was conducted on 7th-grade students. In total, 825 students completed self- and peer-reports on aggressive, delinquent, and disruptive classroom behavior. Longitudinal, multilevel negative binomial analyses showed that the perceived characteristics of the entire classroom, dominant students, and friends in one’s class significantly predicted self-reported aggressive and disruptive behavioral development but not delinquency. The impact of the 3 social groups under study in this regard did not differ significantly. Classroom effects were independent of students’ out-of-classroom friend influences.

Attitude Transference Among Adolescents: The Relationship Between Injunctive Classroom Norms and Individual Antisocial Attitudes

Cognition plays a major role in the development of antisocial behavior. The aim of this study was to extend the current state of research regarding the mechanisms of negative peer influence in adolescence by testing whether aggregated classroom attitudes (injunctive norms) predict individual attitudes toward antisocial behavior and vice versa. For that purpose, attitudes toward a broad range of aggressive and delinquent behaviors were assessed in 864 lower secondary school students in Switzerland. The survey took place at 4 measurement points, spanning Grade 7 to Grade 9. The reciprocal influence between group norms and individual attitudes was tested in a lagged multilevel model for change. Results indicated that injunctive classroom norms predicted subsequent individual attitudes but that individual attitudes did not predict subsequent classroom norms, even if student’s social dominance status was included in the model as a moderator.

Aktuelle Forschungsprojekte: Zum Einfluss sozialer Strukturen von Schulklassen auf schulisches Problemverhalten

Im schulischen Alltag belasten Lehrpersonen weniger die seltenen und extremen Formen von Dissozialität (z. B. physische Gewalt) als die häufiger auftretenden, milderen Ausprägungen schulischen Problemverhaltens (z. B. Schwatzen oder Umhergehen während des Unterrichts usw.). Diese Verhaltensweisen vollziehen sich im Unterricht im Interaktionsfeld zwischen Lehrperson und Schüler/innen (vgl. Müller u. a. 2012) und gehen für Kinder und Jugendliche häufig mit negativen leistungsbezogenen und sozialen Konsequenzen einher.