The “Social Contagion” Theory of Good and Bad Grades

Does who you hang out with in school affect your grades? wondered a group of high-school students. In partnership with the National Science Foundation, they conducted a two-year study of 160 juniors in an Endwell (NY) high school and found that students’ grades gravitate toward the average of the social circle in which they move. In other words, if a student hangs out with friends whose average GPA is higher, that student’s GPA is likely to improve. And if a student hangs with friends whose GPA is lower, his or her GPA tends to drop. 

“Researchers Want to Know: Are Good Grades Contagious?” by Sarah Sparks in Education Week, Feb. 20, 2013 (Vol. 32, #21, p. 5), www.edweek.org; the full article, “Spread of Academic Success in a High School Social Network” by Deanna Blansky et al., in PLOS One, is available at http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0055944. 

From the Marshall Memo #474