Sorting Decisions and Peer Processes in Schools (SPINS)

• Applicant: Dr. Hanno Kruse
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 458745130

How does school sorting affect local peer processes among students that shape their emerging collective identities, social networks, and academic self-concepts? The proposed project offers a new perspective on this issue by focusing on local school administrators and their consequential decisions on school admissions and classroom placements. Schools are key sites of social exchange whose impact goes well beyond individual life courses. Local peer processes in schools affect societal cohesion in general, as they often produce substantial disparities along the lines of ethnicity, gender, and social class. Sociological research has established the importance of compositional features of schools for peer processes among adolescents. However, what is missing are data and research designs that allow one to identify the effects of sorting decisions (i.e., school admissions and class placements) on peer processes. By closing this gap, the planned project seeks practically relevant insights. Better knowledge on the social consequences of sorting decisions is urgently needed – all the more since the COVID 19 pandemic has put the organisation of schools directly to the test.The proposed project builds on the notion that headmasters and teachers have a much greater influence on local peer processes at their schools than they are currently aware of. Besides aiming for balanced class compositions, this project highlights that headmasters and teachers can affect the extent to which different demographic categories align or crosscut each other – an often-overlooked compositional feature with profound social consequences. The project will combine structuralist perspectives on school sorting with analyses of everyday peer processes to formulate and test new hypotheses on how local school administrators can take deliberate sorting decisions in support of inclusive identities, cohesive networks, and positive academic self-concepts. Empirically, the proposed project will conduct a large-scale field experiment targeting headmasters and teachers in their sorting decisions. Focusing on schools in small and mid-sized districts in Germany, the project will provide nationally representative information on a population that is little noticed though considerable in size. The field experiment will be accompanied by a longitudinal survey addressing local school administrators and students as well as by the collection of administrative data from local school authorities. In addition, and in preparation of the primary data collection, the project seeks to conduct secondary analyses of existing large-scale datasets. Combining these various data sources holds the potential for groundbreaking insights into the social impact of local school administrators and their sorting decisions. Doing so will contribute not only to a better general understanding of the social consequences of sorting but also to the design of effective practical interventions in German secondary schools.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups