Associations between Ethnic Minority Status and Popularity in Adolescence: the role of Ethnic Classroom Composition and Aggression

Abstract

Although there are theoretical reasons to expect an association between ethnic minority status and popularity, research on this topic is scarce. Therefore, this association was investigated including the moderating role of the ethnic classroom composition and the mediating role of aggression. Data from the longitudinal Dutch SNARE (Social Network Analysis of Risk behavior in Early adolescence) project were used among first-year students (comparable to 5th grade) (N = 1134, N classrooms = 51, M = 12.5 years, 137 non-Western ethnic minority students). Popularity and aggression were assessed with peer nominations. Multi-level Structural Equation Models showed that ethnic minority status was indirectly associated with higher popularity, through higher aggression. Moreover, with increasing numbers of ethnic minority students in the classroom, popularity levels of both ethnic majority and ethnic minority students decreased. Only when differences in aggression between ethnic minority and majority students were included in the analyses, while the ethnic classroom composition was not included, lower popularity levels were found for ethnic minority than ethnic majority students. Scientific and practical implications of this study were addressed in the discussion.

Peer Status as a Potential Risk or Protective Factor: A Latent Profile Analysis on Peer Status and Its Association with Internalizing Symptoms in Adolescents with and without Parental Physical Abuse Experience

“…Further, adolescents with physical abuse experience and with a migration background had a higher probability of being in the liked-popular profile than in the rejected-unpopular profile. These results support Kovacev and Shute's [84] and Stevens et al's [85] previous findings, which showed that immigrant youth received high peer acceptance scores as well as high popularity scores, especially if they had positive attitudes toward the heritage and the host cultures. Moreover, similar to Bukowski et al [86], high socioeconomic status significantly predicted profile membership in the liked profile compared to the rejectedunpopular profile.…”

“…On the other hand, Kovacev and Shute [84] identified that adolescents with a migration background received high peer acceptance values, especially if they had a positive attitude toward heritage and host cultures. Regarding popularity, Stevens et al's [85] study showed that youth with migration backgrounds were more popular compared to their native classmates.…”

Bullying Perpetration, Moral Disengagement and Need for Popularity: Examining Reciprocal Associations in Adolescence

“…But bidirectionality between need for popularity and aggressive behavior has been tested in only a handful of studies. Previous research with early adolescents found that aggression predicts peer-nominated popularity in early adolescence (Stevens et al, 2020), suggesting it may be a successful strategy in some contexts. More tellingly, a two-wave study with Canadian students in grades 9-11 found that social aggression predicted significant increases in need for popularity assessed five months later (Dumas et al, 2019).…”

The Role of Aggressive Peer Norms in Elementary School Children’s Perceptions of Classroom Peer Climate and School Adjustment

“…A final limitation is that the sample was relatively homogeneous, consisting of a vast majority of Dutch students, which is partly due to ethnicity being based on country of birth of children and parents (CBS, 2021 ). Even though the sample’s ethnic composition is in line with ethnic composition of children in The Netherlands (CBS, 2021 ), it would be interesting to examine whether ethnicity and classroom ethnic composition may be of importance for students’ adjustment (Stevens et al, 2021 ) or classroom climate perceptions.…”