O efeito dos pares sobre o desempenho escolar de alunos do ensino fundamental

Abstract

This dissertation aims to identify and measure the peer effects on scholar performance of students, measured by proficiency in Portuguese and Mathematics tests, from 1st to 4th grades of public and private schools who attended the Estudo Longitudinal Geração Escolar (GERES, 2005-2008). The GERES database follows students throughout the first stage of elementary school and provides, apart from the students' information, data about schools, teachers and principals. The study starts from a linear model where the students' performance is explained by the average performance of his/her peer group, as well as his/her own characteristics and average characteristics of his/her group. The applied method - proposed by Lee (2007) - uses variations in the size of the groups and deviations of the characteristics from the mean as well, in order to identify the peer effects. The coefficients are estimated through the Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) estimator, using the instruments proposed by Bramoullé, Djebbari and Fortin (2009). The regressions consider each wave of the GERES to verify the change of the coefficients over time. Further, we compare the results between a balanced database with an unbalanced database, where the correction method follows Davezies et al. (2009). In both samples, the results show that the average performance of the peers negatively impacts student’s performances. The background characteristics of the peer group also influence school performance, specifically the socioeconomic level and the gender of the students.