The Relationship Between Peer Rejection, Friendship And Early Adolescents’ Academic Achievement

Experiences with peers constitute an important developmental context for early adolescence.Adolescents’ peer relation can be understood by referring to two levels—in groups (peer rejectionand peer acceptance) and in dyadic (friendship). Prior emphases on the distinctive effects ofdifferent peer relation indicators on adolescent adjustments have been replaced by emphases onmodels that emphasize how sets of variables function together via distinctive and interaction toaffect outcome. Lots of researches had proved that peer rejection was a risk for academicachievement of early adolescents, bur few research put attention on whether friendship, one ofadolescents’ important social supports, can play a protective role on the negative effect of peerrejection on academic achievement. Based on the review, this study examined the direct effect ofpeer relationships on academic achievement, and the interaction patterns between different peerrelation indicators (peer rejection, friendship) on academic achievement, as well as the grade andgender effect.So this study adopted peer nomination measure, self-report measures and midsemester testscore on341early adolescents from grade5and7, analyzed the relation between academicachievement and peer relationships (peer rejection, friendship) among early adolescents, andwhether the relation between peer rejection and academic achievement can be moderated byfriendship (having friends, friendship quality, the identity of best friend). The main conclusionswere as follows:1. Boys received lower academic achievement, lower peer rejection, fewer friends. Studentsin grade7had fewer friends. And there is no significant difference for friendship quality wasobserved between grade and gender.2. Peer rejection predicted academic achievement significantly for adolescents from grade5and7, and the effect was more intensity for grade7, and the influence was no significantdifference between gender.3. Having at least one friend, greater academic achievement of best friend, lower peerrejection of best friend predicted early adolescents’ greater academic achievement, and thesepredicting effects would vary according to grade and gender. 4. Having at least one friend could moderate the relation between peer rejection andacademic achievement of girls in grade7, having at least one friend played as a protective factorthat could reduce the influence of peer rejection on academic achievement.5. The number of reciprocal friends could moderate the relation between peer rejection andacademic achievement of boys, the moderating effects would vary according to grade. For boys ingrade5, the influence of peer rejection on academic achievement was significant only when thenumber of reciprocal friends was fewer, in other words, more friends played as a protective factorthat could protect adolescents’ academic achievement against peer rejection; For boys in grade7,more friends increased the influence of peer rejection on academic achievement.6. Friendship quality could moderate the relation between peer rejection and academicachievement of boys in grade7, the influence of peer rejection on academic achievement wassignificant only for adolescents with more positive friendship quality, in other words, morepositive friendship quality played a protective factor that could protect adolescents’ academicachievement against peer rejection. For students in grade5, more positive friendship qualityincreased the influence of peer rejection on academic achievement.7. The identity of best friend couldn’t moderate the relation between peer rejection andacademic achievement of early adolescents.