The Long-Term Impacts of Low-Achieving Childhood Peers: Evidence from Project STAR

Arbeitspapier

This paper evaluates how sharing a kindergarten classroom with low-achieving repeaters affects the long-term educational performance of regular first-time kindergarten students. Exploiting random assignment of teachers and students to classes in Project STAR, I document three sets of causal impacts: students who are exposed to repeaters (1) score lower on standardized tests at the end of kindergarten, an effect that fades out in later grades; (2) show persistent improvements in non-cognitive skills such as effort and discipline; and (3) are more likely to graduate from high school and to take a college entrance exam around the age of eighteen. I show that the positive spillovers from repeaters on long-term educational attainment are likely driven by the differential accumulation of non-cognitive skills by repeater-exposed students during childhood. The improvements in these skills are in turn a result of behavioral adjustments by teachers, students, or parents to the presence of low-achieving repeaters in the classroom.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 2015:35

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Analysis of Education
• Subject: peer effects ; non-cognitive skills ; early childhood ; Project STAR.

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bietenbeck, Jan
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Lund University, School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics
• (where): Lund
• (when): 2015

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/260172
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET