Soc Psychol Educ (2008) 11:149–160

DOI 10.1007/s11218-007-9041-z

Peer pressure: a cause of scholastic underachievement?

A cross-cultural study of mathematical achievement
among German, Canadian, and Israeli middle school
students

Klaus Boehnke

Received: 17 January 2007 / Accepted: 26 September 2007 / Published online: 11 December 2007
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract The present study examines consequences of high peer pressure on academic per-
formance in mathematics among 14-year-old middle-school students in Germany, Canada,
and Israel. Its core assumption is that students with very high abilities in mathematics un-
derachieve in order to avoid social exclusion (in the form of being called, e.g., nerds) in
their schools. Altogether almost 1,700 students were surveyed in the three cultures. Findings
of the study make it obvious that—concerning achievement in mathematics—the primary
victims of peer pressure in middle school are girls, boys more likely than girls being the
perpetrators. High individual preferences of achievement values can buffer effects of peer
pressure. However, from a pedagogical point of view it may nevertheless seem an option to
teach mathematics in mono-gender courses, in order to improve the chances of both girls and
boys to show an academic performance that concurs with their real competence.

Keywords Peer Pressure · Underachievement · Cross-cultural · Mathematical achievement ·

Germany · Canada · Israel · Middle school students · Bullying

1 Introduction

Peer pressure or peer victimization—usually called bullying in the pertinent literature (Rigby
2002)—can take quite different forms, and can also have diverse consequences. This paper
addresses an issue that is sometimes overlooked when discussing the question of peers
exerting pressure on each other. Its focal question is whether peer pressure exerted on
high-competence middle school students by, for example, calling them ‘nerds’, ‘teacher’s

The study reported in this article was in large parts funded by a grant from the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Bo 929/16-1). Israeli data were collected by Dr. Jenny Kurman from the
University of Haifa. Data from Canada were collected by the project’s research associate, Anna-Katharina
Pelkner, who was funded through the grant from the DFG.

K. Boehnke (B)
Jacobs University Bremen, Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany
e-mail: K.Boehnke@jacobs-university.de

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pets’, and the like, has a negative impact on the school performance of students who are the
victims of such verbal aggression.
The basic hypothesis of the present study is that—in middle school (Grades 7 to 10) in
particular—students with a high achievement potential do not fully develop their capabilities,
because they fear social exclusion and (usually verbal) victimization from their fellow stu-
dents when they achieve grades that concur with their true abilities. Above all in the early to
mid teens, adolescents are highly dependent on acceptance by their peers. This is in line with
the fact that peer group integration is one of the important developmental tasks of that age
period (Lerner et al. 2001; Cooper and Denner 1998). Although with a high degree of cross-
cultural variability, it tends to be the case in many societies that good students are called nerds,
teacher’s pets, geeks, corks, dorks, etc., by their fellow students when they perform well aca-
demically. The present study sets out to test whether a negative impact of achievement-related
peer pressure on academic performance in school can indeed be corroborated empirically in
a culturally diverse sample.
A, so-to-speak, pre-hypothesis of this study is that the correlation between objectively
measured—in our case mathematical—competence and academic performance in school—
measured by grades in math—will be higher among students with a low to medium high
achievement potential than among students with a very high achievement potential. This is
largely a mathematical rule, because students who with regard to their achievement potential
are among, for example, the best 5% of all students have a much higher a priori chance to
perform below their abilities in school than students who belong to the 95% with a low to
medium high achievement potential have to perform above their abilities: The high ability
group can sink, so-to-speak, to the 1st through 95th percentile in academic school perfor-
mance, while the low to medium high ability group can only progress to the 96th through
100th percentile in academic school performance. This means that there is a high a priori
probability that the correlation between achievement potential (measured by standardized
tests) and actual academic performance in school (measured in grades) will be higher in the
low to medium high ability group than in the very high ability group.
It would, however, hardly be worth the journal pages if it were the only objective of this
study to test and confirm a hypothesis that is to a high degree mathematically prescribed.
What this study sets out to show is that middle school students with a very high mathematical
achievement potential are holding back their potential as a consequence of peer pressure
exerted on them for reasons of their high achievement.
In a well-functioning school system test scores in standardized tests of mathematical
abilities should be correlated positively with grades achieved in school. Good test scores
should go along with good grades, weak test scores with bad grades. Standardized tests,
however, are usually obtained in an individualized, so-to-speak private, context. Scores are
typically revealed only to the test person and the test administrator. Grades, on the contrary,
typically are public evaluations of one’s academic performance. They, thus, have a social
component. It has been shown (Scott and Scott 1998; Boehnke 1996) that across cultures
teacher’s subjective evaluations of student’s academic performance are influenced strongly by
the degree to which teachers see students as self-confident and, as a matter of fact, obedient.
Students who exhibit a better fit to teacher’s discipline expectations get better grades, largely
independent of their true intellectual abilities.
What has not as frequently been studied is to what degree grades are influenced by peers.
Older work, as, for example, a study by Walberg et al. (1984) with Indian students showed
that peer group status and grades are positively related after partialing for several other
variables. Uguroglu and Walberg (1986) showed a positive relationship between performance
in mathematics and peer support for a North American sample. Both studies did, however,

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assume a different direction of causality than does the present study. They expected good
mathematical school performance as a consequence of a high peer group status. This means
that once a student has acquired a good standing among school peers, his or her grades will
improve. The mechanism behind this finding could either be that high peer group status
generates self-esteem: Self-reported self-esteem of students has repeatedly been shown to
be one of the primary sources of a good academic performance (Helmke 1992). Or else, it
could be the case that teachers tend to give better grades to students to whom they attribute a
high self-esteem (Boehnke 1996), which they are likely to detect when a student has a good
standing in his or her class.
Contrary to the studies by Walberg and colleagues, the present research focuses on the
reverse causal chain. It assumes that good academic performance in mathematics leads to
negative peer sanctions, which in turn over time may lead to a reduction in individual perfor-
mance. Feather (1989) has adopted the concept of the ‘tall poppy’ syndrome to describe the
phenomenon of high achievers being slashed, so-to-speak, to a normal height by their peers.
The assumption contradicts the findings by Walberg and colleagues only peripherally. While
Walberg shows that high peer acceptance, acquired predominantly in the social interaction of
a school class, “spills over” into academic performance, it is assumed here that the reverse is
not true: High academic performance, on the contrary, creates envy and leads to negative peer
sanctions. Juvonen and Murdock (1995) work with a similar assumption. They interpret their
finding of a negative relationship between academic performance and peer group status as
moderated by age. In a comparison of fourth, sixth and eighth-graders they were able to show
that contrary to younger students, eighth-graders were very reluctant to tell their classmates
about the amount of work they invested to achieve good grades. Obviously at middle-school
age effort to achieve good grades is not well received by peers. The present study postu-
lates that this also pertains to good grades per se. Good grades tend to be interpreted as
counter-normative behavior in an age-group for which peer group integration is a prominent
developmental task. This debate has gained some scientific attention in the gifted-children
discourse (Austin and Draper 1981; Brown and Steinberg 1990; Brown and Steinberg 1990;
Manor-Bullock et al. 1995; Schroeder-Davis 1999). Peer influence on academic performance
(beyond the gifted-children discourse) has also been studied by Kindermann (1993). Reviews
have been prepared by Berndt and Keefe (1995) as well as Kindermann et al. (1995), and
Brown (1990).
One can be sure, however, to encounter cross-cultural and interindividual differences in the
strength of the postulated relationship between good grades and negative peer sanctions. First
of all, a stronger effect can be assumed for girls than for boys. Mathematics are often seen as
a “male” subject. Boys are stereotypically assumed to be better at it than girls a priori. High
achievement in mathematics is sometimes even seen as an “un-girl-like” activity (Hannover
1999). Köller et al. (1999) at the same time show that girls depend more heavily than boys
on the judgment of others in their self-evaluations. Knowing this, it seems highly probable
that girls show greater fears of social exclusion than do boys when they are high achievers in
mathematics, and also that boys exert a stronger achievement-related peer pressure (Bishop
1999). Steel and his colleagues (Walsh et al. 1999; Steele et al. 2002) have coined the term
“stereotype threat” for this phenomenon, and have shown its influence experimentally.
Second, the postulated negative relationship between mathematical school performance
and peer group pressure presumably is influenced by the culture-specific and by the individual
strength of achievement values. In cultures where achievement values have a high average
preference, the relationship between good academic performance and fear of social exclusion
is presumably weaker than in cultures that put relatively little emphasis on achievement as
a guiding principle in life. In cultures with a high emphasis on mastery (Schwartz 2004)

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being scolded for high achievement is, on the one hand, less probable, and secondly less
consequential, because the victim does not engage in culturally counter-normative behavior.
On the individual level high achievement values can be assumed to function as a buffer
against fears of social exclusion on the grounds of excellent academic performance. When
I value achievement very highly it is less probable that the fact that peers are threatening
me with social exclusion will lead to reduced academic performance, because lower grades
would violate my central values (even if they would prevent social exclusion).
The hypotheses of the present study can be summarized as follows:

(1) (a) A climate of peer pressure on the grounds of high achievement is less likely in cultures
with higher average preferences of achievement values.
(b) Boys are more involved in producing a climate of peer pressure on the grounds of
high achievement than girls are.
(2) (a) The relationship between fear of social exclusion and grades (in mathematics) is
lower in cultures with higher average preferences of achievement values.
(b) The relationship between fear of social exclusion and grades (in mathematics) is
higher for girls than for boys.

(3) The relationship between abilities and grades is stronger among students with low to
medium high abilities in mathematics than among students with very high abilities in
mathematics.
(4) The relationship between ability and performance is moderated by fears of social
exclusion: For students with very high abilities, high fears of social exclusion lead to a
negative relationship between test scores and grades.
(5) The effect postulated in Hypothesis 4 is stronger for girls than it is for boys.
(6) The effect postulated in Hypothesis 4 becomes yet stronger when one partials for in-
dividual achievement values, because the latter function as a buffer against negative
consequences of peer pressure.

2 Methods

2.1 Samples

Samples of the present study were stratified convenience cluster samples of eighth and ninth
graders in Germany, Canada, and Israel. Grade/age levels were chosen according to the rule
followed in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, Martin et al.
2000; Mullis et al. 2000), namely to select that school grade from a specific culture that
encompasses the majority of the 14-year-olds of that country. As schooling starts later in
Germany than in the two other countries, the majority of 14-year-olds are in Grade 8 there,
while in the other two countries they are in Grade 9. Sampling units were schools, clusters in
the language of sampling theory. Classes were chosen on a convenience basis from schools
with sufficiently diverse social backgrounds. Typically all eighth/ninth grade classes from a
school were included in the sample. In Germany the study was conducted in Chemnitz, a
260,000 inhabitant city in the south of the former German Democratic Republic, now the
East of the Federal Republic of Germany. In Canada the study was conducted in Calgary
(well over 900,000 inhabitants) in the Province of Alberta. In Israel the study was conducted
in Haifa and in Beer-Sheva, where Haifa is somewhat larger than Chemnitz (280,000), and
Beer-Sheva smaller (180,000).

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Altogether 336 girls and 305 boys were included in Chemnitz (another 13 participants
did not indicate their gender), 301 girls and 304 boys were included in Calgary (six did not
indicate their gender), whereas the Israeli sample comprised of 205 girls and 214 boys (ten
not indicating their gender), thus being somewhat smaller.

2.2 Instruments

The questionnaire used in the three cultures had numerous parts, not all are included in this
report. Here data are reported only with regard to the degree of peer pressure leading to social
exclusion, to fears of social exclusion, to school grades in mathematics, to the ability to solve
standardized mathematical tasks, and to achievement value preferences.
Strength of peer pressure was measured by asking, “How often have you yourself called
a fellow student a ‘Streber’ (German version), ‘nerd’ (English version), or ‘Hnun’ (Hebrew
version).” In Canada and Israel participants were additionally asked, “How often have you
yourself called a fellow student a teacher’s pet (‘Haviv Ha-more’ in Hebrew).” These items
measure active peer pressure. Furthermore participants were asked, “How often have you
been called a ‘Streber’/‘nerd’/‘Hnun’ by a fellow student” and (in Canada and Israel) “… a
teacher’s pet (‘Haviv Ha-more’ in Hebrew) …” Rating options for all questions ranged from
‘never’ (1) to ‘frequently’ (4). In Canada and Israel responses to the two used items were
averaged. The culture-specific construction of the measurement finds its explanation in the
fact that the German concept of ‘Streber’ does have a meaning that encompasses aspects
of both nerd and teacher’s pet. These items measure passive peer pressure. As the question
approached in Hypothesis 1 is not so much the question of who is a victim and who is a
perpetrator so and so often, but whether a climate of peer pressure is characteristic for a
certain culture or for either of the sexes, an index finally was calculated by averaging active
and passive peer pressure. This index measures the strength of the general climate of peer
pressure.
Measurement of fear of social exclusion followed the same lines. One item was used in
all three countries, namely “How often do you fear being called a ‘Streber’/‘nerd’/‘Hnun’.”
In Canada and Israel a second item was asked, namely, “How often do you fear being called
teacher’s pet (‘Haviv Ha-more’ in Hebrew).” Answering options were the same as for the
peer pressure items. The culture-specific construction of the measurement again finds its
explanation in the fact that the German concept of ‘Streber,’ does have a meaning that
encompasses aspects of both nerd and teacher’s pet.
For grades in mathematics participants were requested to indicate the grade from their most
recent report card. In Israel and Canada grades are given in percent values. German grades
are given in the classical form (‘1’ = ‘excellent’ to ‘6’ = ‘insufficient,’ roughly equivalent to
the North American A to F grading scheme). For the purpose of a common analysis classical
grades were transformed into percentage grades. For the German grade ‘1’ percentages
between 100 and 86 were generated by letting SPSS draw them from a uniform population
of random numbers, for the German grade ‘2’ numbers between 85 and 71 were generated.
For grade ‘3’ percentages between 70 and 56 were drawn; grade ‘4’ was transformed into
random percentages between 55 and 41, for grade ‘5’ to random percentages between 40 and
25, and for grade ‘6’ to random percentages between 25 and 0. For hypothesis testing, grades
were z-standardized within countries, i.e., the country mean for the percentage grade was
subtracted from the participant’s grade, and the difference was divided by the country-specific
standard deviation. Missing data were substituted by EM estimation (Dempster et al. 1997).
This means that based on the so-called expected maximum algorithm missing scores were
estimated on the basis of knowledge about scores of all sample members on all variables for

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which data were available. This procedure has to be distinguished from mean substitution,
because unlike in that procedure it leaves the sample variance of each variable unchanged.
To receive a standardized assessment of the mathematical abilities of participants, three
tasks from the task pool of the TIMSS Study for Grade 12 (!) were included in the survey
instrument. Grade 12 tasks were used for the eight/ninth grade samples in order to allow
the detection of really bright students who are able to solve tasks way beyond standard
expectations. A sample task read, “In the following we would like to ask you to solve three
math tasks. There are four to five possible answers. One of them is correct. Please mark the
correct answer. (1) Brighto soap powder is packed in cube-shaped cartons. A carton measures
10 cm on each side. The company decides to increase the length of each edge of the carton
by 10%. How much does the volume increase? (A) 10 cm3 , (B) 21 cm3 , (C) 100 cm3 , (D)
331 cm3 . Number of correctly solved tasks was used as the measure of mathematical ability
(Mullis et al. 2000). For the ability measure, scores between ‘0’ (no task solved) and ‘3’
(all tasks solved) are possible. For hypothesis testing, ability measures were z-standardized
within countries, i.e., the country mean for the number of solved tasks was subtracted from the
individual scores, and the difference was divided by the country-specific standard deviation.
Finally, achievement value preferences were measured by using four achievement items
from the new portrait version of the Schwartz Value Survey (Schwartz et al. 2001). A sample
item read, “Here we briefly describe some people. Please read each description and think
about how much each person is or is not like you. Put a number in the box to the right that
shows how much the person in the description is like you; ‘1’ = not like me at all, ‘2’ = not
like me, ‘3’ = a little like me, ‘4’ = somewhat like me, ‘5’ = like me, ‘6’ = very much like
me: Being very successful is important to her/him. She/he likes to impress other people.”
The four-item scale had a consistency of α = .77, country-specific α’s ranged from .72 to
.78. Here also, missing data were substituted by EM estimation.1

3 Results

Before tests of the six hypotheses are presented, descriptive results for all measured variables
are put forward. Table 1 documents grand sample and culture-specific results for all variables.

Table 1 Means and standard deviations of all variables

Variables

Country Climate of peer Fear of social Most recent Mathematical Preference of

pressure exclusion percentage abilities achievement
grade in (TIMSS) values
mathematics

Entire Sample 1.92 (.63) 1.69 (.90) 72.52 (15.46) .84(.89) 3.69 (1.14)
Germany 2.05 (.67) 1.52 (.80) 65.40 (13.02) .99 (.98) 3.26 (1.01)
Canada 1.78 (.60) 1.74 (.95) 75.50 (15.72) .71 (.73) 4.07 (1.10)
Israel 1.91 (.55) 1.88 (.93) 79.10 (14.16) .78 (.92) 3.80 (1.17)

1 EM substitution for missing values was used for variables with more than 5 possible values that had less
than 3% missing values.

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Table 1 shows that a climate of peer pressure is least prevalent in Canada, while German
students report the highest means for peer pressure with Israel in the middle. Fears of social
exclusion per se are highest in Israel and lowest in Germany. Mean grades are highest in
Israel and lowest in Germany. A different result is obtained for standardized math test scores.
Here German students on average solve 1 of 3 tasks, while Canadian students solve only
.72 tasks with Israel in the middle. Clear differences were obtained for achievement value
preferences. These are clearly highest in Canada with Israeli students somewhat lower, and
German students substantially below the means of the other cultures.
The first hypothesis assumed that a climate of peer pressure in connection with high
academic performance should be stronger in cultures with a lower average preference of
achievement values, that is, as is clear from Table 1, the climate of peer pressure should be
highest in Germany and lowest in Canada, and that boys should more so be a part of this than
girls. The hypothesis was tested by conducting a two-way analysis of variance with culture
and gender as independent variables and the peer pressure index as the dependent variable.
For the culture main effect a significant F score was obtained, F2|1659 = 32.41,
p < .001, η2 = 3.8%. Scheffé tests showed that all three countries differed significantly
from one another with Canada having the lowest and Germany the highest scores for a climate
of peer pressure. Thus, Hypothesis 1a was fully confirmed.
Hypothesis 1b assumed that boys would be more responsible for a climate of peer pressure
than girls. This hypothesis also emerged as being confirmed. The F score for the gender main
effect was F1|1659 = 4.60, p = .032, η2 = .3%, although the effect size was minimal. Boys
are more prone to be part of a climate of peer pressure (µ = 1.95) than girls (µ = 1.88).
Taking a closer look at actively exerting peer pressure (calling others a nerd/teacher’s pet),
and at being victim of peer pressure (having been called a nerd/teacher’s pet), it becomes
evident that the gender difference has its roots in boys being more active than girls in exerting
peer pressure (µ = 2.31 vs. µ = 2.16, p = .001). With regard to being under pressure there
is no gender difference, nor did a significant interaction of culture and gender emerge.
Hypothesis 2a postulated that the relationship between fear of social exclusion and grades
would be greater in cultures with a low preference for achievement values. This means that
the weakest relationship should be found in Canada, a somewhat higher one in Israel, and the
relatively strongest relationship should be found in Germany. The hypothesis was tested by
calculating within-culture correlations between fear of social exclusion and the percentage
grade using AMOS 7 (Arbuckle 2006); AMOS was used, because that program offers a simple
test of a moderation effect as is postulated in Hypothesis 2a and several other hypotheses.
Correlations emerged as being r = .07, p = .09 for Canada, r = −.02, p = .71 for Israel,
r = .08, p = .03 for Germany. Hypothesis 2a could not be confirmed: The constrained
model, that is setting the correlations equal across the three countries, showed no significant
difference in model fit to the unconstrained model that allows for differences in correlation
coefficients between the countries (χ 2 = 2.64, df = 2, p > .10). A marginal confirmation
of the hypothesis was achieved only insofar that for German students the highest and only
significant correlation between fear of social exclusion and grades was found.
Hypothesis 2b was tested by calculating grand sample and within-culture correlations
between fear of social exclusion and percentage grades separately for boys and girls. In the
grand sample, coefficients were r = .15, p < .001 for girls and r = .07, p = .04. Using the
χ 2 -difference test offered by AMOS, coefficients for boys and girls did not differ significantly
(χ 2 = 2.44, df = 1, p > .10). Within each culture gender differences in the relationship
between fear of social exclusion and grade emerged only slightly more convincing: For
Germany correlations for girls and boys were r = .12, p = .03 and r = .04, p = .54, of
similar size as in the grand sample, and, thus, insignificant (χ 2 = .8, df = 1, p > .25).

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For Israel correlations were r = .10, p = .16 for girls, and r = −.13, p = .06 for boys
(χ 2 = 5.4, p < .05); here the difference was significant. In Canada the correlation for girls
was β = .09, p = .120, whereas for boys the correlation was β = .04, p = .455(χ 2 =
.29, df = 1, p > .25). It must be remarked that in all cases effect sizes were small.
Hypothesis 3 assumed that the relationship between abilities and grades would be stronger
for students with low to medium high than for students with very high abilities. This hypo-
thesis was tested by splitting the sample into a the group of students who were able to solve
all three TIMSS tasks (5% of the grand sample) and those who solved less than three tasks
(0, 1, or 2), and then calculating the correlation between TIMSS scores z-standardized within
cultures and grades z-standardized within cultures. The correlation in the low to medium high
ability group (N = 1606) was r = .20, p < .001, in the very high ability group (N = 88)
it was r = .02, p = .86). An assessment of comparison of these two correlation coefficients
supports Hypothesis 3, as the difference between the unconstrained model and the model
constraining the coefficients to equality was significant (χ 2 = 21.9, df = 1, p < .001).
Hypothesis 4 assumed that the relationship between ability and performance is moderated
by fears of social exclusion: For students with very high abilities, high fears of social exclusion
were assumed to lead to a negative relationship between TIMSS scores and grades. To test
this hypothesis, the grand sample was additionally split into those students with fears of
social exclusion below and those with fears of social exclusion above the median.2 For the
now four groups, correlations between the z-standardized TIMSS scores and z-standardized
percentage grades were calculated. For the very high ability/high fear group (N = 35) the
correlation between abilities and grades was r = −.27, p = .12. For the very high ability/low
fear group (N = 53) the correlation was r = .13, p = .37. For the low to medium high
ability/high fear group (N = 631) the correlation was r = .21, p < .001, and for the
low to medium high ability/low fear group (N = 944) the correlation is exactly the same
(r = .21, p < .001). The four obtained correlation coefficients differ significantly: For
the comparison of the unconstrained model and the model constraining the correlations to
be equal a χ 2 = 36.27, df = 3, p < .001 was found. In spite of the fact that within
the high ability group the correlations between ability and grades were insignificant—due
to small sample size—the moderating effect of fear of social exclusion could be confirmed
convincingly: Only in the very high ability/high fear group a negative relationship between
ability and grades was found.
Hypothesis 5 postulated that the obtained effects would be substantially stronger for girls
than for boys. Hypothesis 6 assumed that the postulated effects would come out yet stronger
when one partialled for individual achievement value preferences, because the latter serve as a
buffer against the consequences of fears of social exclusion. In order to test both hypotheses,
the already determined four groups were further split by gender.3 Then, first, zero-order
correlations were calculated between standardized TIMSS-scores and standardized grades,
and finally partial correlations were obtained using achievement value preferences as a partial.
Correlation coefficients from both analyses are documented in Table 2.
Table 2 shows that all obtained correlation coefficients are in line with the hypotheses.
For low to medium high ability students regardless of their gender, the relationship between
abilities and grades is positive and significant. For the very high ability/high fear students
the relationship between grades and abilities is always negative, regardless of their gen-

2 Unfortunately the variable ‘Fear of Social Exclusion’ (a variable with less than five answering options) had
31 missing data, so the sample size is reduced to N = 1, 663.
3 This reduces subgroup sizes even further, because—as mentioned in the sample description—a number of
participants did not indicate their gender.

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Table 2 Correlations between mathematical abilities and grades in different groups

Gender Ability Fear of social Zero-order correlation Correlation of grades

exclusion of grades and ability and ability partialled
for achievement value
preference

Boys Low ability Low fear .24∗∗ .23∗∗

Low ability High fear .21∗ .20∗
High ability Low fear .01 .11
High ability High fear −.17 −.19
Girls Low ability Low fear .17∗ .15∗
Low ability High fear .23∗∗ .22∗∗
High ability Low fear .30 .30
High ability High fear −.40 −.74∗
∗ p < .01, ∗∗ p < .001

der, however, for girls the effect is stronger, for them the relationship is more negative.
The correlation coefficients differ significantly from each other: For the comparison of the
constrained and the unconstrained model a χ 2 = 39.85, df = 7, p < .001 was obtained.
Results are in line with the gender-related hypothesis, but coefficients are not significant due
to small subgroup sizes. If one is willing to disregard this, one can even remark that very
high ability girls benefit most from a fear-free environment: The positive correlation between
abilities and grades is highest in the group of very high ability girls with below average fears.
Hypothesis 6 was most convincingly confirmed. The unconstrained model and the model
in which the partial correlations are constrained to be equal differ significantly in their fit to the
data: χ 2 = 15.88, df = 7, p < .05, indicating that partial correlations are not equal. There
obviously is a very strong negative relationship between abilities and grades among high
ability girls who have high fears of social exclusion and at the same time negate achievement
values. For that group the partial correlation coefficient was r = −.74, p < .001.

4 Discussion

The present study took an approach one finds only sporadically in educational studies (cf.,
Bishop 1999): Underachievement in mathematics was conceptualized as a consequence of
peer pressure exerted by school mates in middle school. About 14-year-olds were studied
in Germany, Canada, and Israel. The purpose of the present study was not so much that
of a cross-cultural comparison; the intention of the study was more so to increase variance
through the inclusion of culturally diverse samples.
The study first showed that a climate of peer pressure is less common in cultures that value
achievement highly than in cultures that report a low preference for achievement values.
As Schwartz (2004) points out, differences in the preference of mastery values (to which
achievement values belong) are probably the dimension along which Western cultures differ
most. English-speaking Canadians and Israelis are clearly high—though not as high as the
US—on such values, while East Germans (who were sampled for the present study) are
markedly lower. Bardi and Sagiv’s (2003) study compares EU countries with Israel and
reports Israel’s preference of mastery values to be above that of Germany, but below that
of the UK and Ireland, which in general have value preferences that come very close to the
one’s of Anglo-Canadians (Schwartz 2004). Reframing results reported above, one can say

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that about 4% of both the Canadian and the Israeli students are reporting a strong climate
of peer pressure on achievement, whereas in Germany 14% do. This means that in mastery
cultures it is not really a common behavior among adolescents to create a climate of peer
pressure around high achievement students.
The study secondly showed that regardless of culture, boys are the ones who are more
responsible for a general climate of peer pressure in the school context. A closer look reveals
that boys are victims of peer pressure as often as girls are, but are more often than girls the
perpetrators of peer pressure. This finding, in general, is in line with data reported by Cowie
(2000).
At first glance it may appear somewhat peculiar that Germans per se exhibit less fear
of social exclusion than do Israelis and Canadians. Obviously a behavior experienced quite
regularly (which calling fellow students a ‘Streber’ is in Germany) is not as frightening as
the same behavior is in cultures where it is less frequent. However, only in Germany do we
find a significant correlation between fear of social exclusion and academic performance.
Only there is it clearly the good students who fear social exclusion, while in the other two
cultures fear of social exclusion is not related to academic performance, when one looks at
the full samples. When additionally looking at gender it emerges that in all three cultures
the relationship between (high) grades and fears of social exclusion is nominally stronger
for girls than for boys. However, only in Israel does the difference achieve significance. The
role of culture and gender in moderating the relationship between fear of social exclusion
and academic performance clearly needs further attention in research to be undertaken in the
future.
Coming now to the core of the present study, one first has to emphasize the central assump-
tion again: It was assumed that students with very high achievement abilities in mathematics
take back, so-to-speak, their potential and show a less excellent academic performance in
school when they experience high peer pressure and sense above average fear of social exclu-
sion. Fears of social exclusion were assumed to function as a moderator in the determination
of academic performance. With low to medium high ability individuals, be they girls or boys,
no impact of fear of social exclusion was assumed and was observable empirically. High fear
was assumed to also hardly impact the relationship between abilities and performance for low
to medium high ability students. Again, this assumption could be corroborated empirically.
What was, however, found in accordance with Hypothesis 5 was that for both boys and girls
in the very high ability/high fear of social exclusion group the relationship between ability
and grades had a negative sign. Both for boys and for girls, the negative correlation coef-
ficients in themselves were not statistically significant. Correlations differed significantly,
however, between all groups, suggesting that indeed high fear of social exclusion can reverse
the normally positive relationship between abilities grades among students with very high
abilities in mathematics.
In spite of quite substantial effect sizes of the findings discussed so far, readers may
nevertheless voice doubt as to whether the findings presented here are not mere chance,
because significance cannot be claimed for the correlation coefficients calculated to perform
the test of Hypothesis 5. It can, however, be said that for girls in the very high ability/high
fear group the relationship between performance and abilities is significantly different from
the one of girls in other subgroups.
Doubt is certainly reduced when one incorporates the test of Hypothesis 6 into ones’
evaluation of the results. It was assumed that high individual preferences for achievement
values would function as a buffer against possible negative effects of fears of social exclu-
sion. To test this assumption the correlation between ability and achievement was partial-
led by achievement value preferences. This statistical technique ‘purifies’, so-to-speak, the

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Peer climate and school performance 159

competence-performance relationship of influences attributable to individual value prefe-

rences. The consequence is clear: For girls but not for boys the negative correlation in the
very high ability/high fear group is increasing substantially, and is now significant even in
the very small subsample of girls with that ability-fear profile.
Before a final applied appraisal of the results is offered, provisos need to be voiced. Of
course, all data are correlational. What is needed in future studies is at first a larger subsample
of very high ability students. Even more so necessary are experimental and longitudinal
studies that test causality. Is it really true that high competence girls ’hold back’ their abilities
to escape social exclusion in early to middle adolescence?
How can these findings be interpreted from an applied point of view? Regarding achieve-
ment in mathematics, the real victims of high peer pressure are girls. They tend to be affected
more by being called ‘Streber’, ‘nerd’, or ‘Hnun’ than boys. It is particularly them who do
feel nerd harassment as described by Bishop (1999). Achievement values can serve as a buffer
to some degree, may even be decisive, but values cannot really be influenced by pedagogical
measures. So, which pedagogical measure should be taken to break the negative impact of
peer pressure? It seems plausible to advocate girls-only (and, consequentially, of course,
boys-only) classes in mathematics and probably science education. It is usually the boys who
exert more peer pressure, and it is usually the girls who, though not being victims of peer
pressure more frequently, experience fear of social exclusion more frequently. If boys are not
‘there’ anymore—in girls-only classes—chances are high that high-competence girls will
develop less fears of social exclusion and will consequentially exhibit a better performance.

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Author Biography

Klaus Boehnke is a Professor of Social Science Methodology at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. He
received his PhD in Psychology from Berlin University of Technology in 1985. He held assistant and associate
professorships at the Department of Education of the Free University of Berlin, and a full professorship of
socialization research and methodology at the Department of Sociology of Chemnitz University of Technology
before he joined Jacobs in 2002. His research interests are in interdisciplinary youth research and its methods.

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