CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1  BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Peer groups are one of the most powerful social factors influencing adolescent behavior, from everyday decisions about dressing, hairstyles, music, and entertainment to more important decisions about short and long-term educational objectives. Peer influence is influenced by factors such as students' ethnicity, socioeconomic background, family ties, and group interests. Peers are valued even more than parents, guardians, and instructors throughout the adolescent years, and adolescents' peer-influenced actions can have long-term effects. Peer groups are important to parents, as seen by their choices of neighborhoods, schools, and activities.

The role of peer impacts in schooling is widely acknowledged. Despite this assumption, no one can agree on the direction in which peers influence one another. Different hypotheses seek to explain this, with some implying that peers' average ability has a negative impact on one's schooling results and others implying that it increases one's successes (Marsh, 2005). Peers may also have an indirect impact on students. This is mainly caused by how teachers react to various groups of students. One possible result is that if students are placed in courses based on their ability, teachers will be able to better adapt instructions to the requirements of their pupils since the group will be more homogeneous, which will benefit all students. However, the major goal of this work is to empirically prove the presence and direction of peer effects, rather than to differentiate the channels via which they act.

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