@inproceedings{5719186,
  abstract     = {{It is important for educational systems to ensure that students are connected to one another. In other words, educational systems should make sure that students have social capital. However, at least one practice, which is nonetheless widely applied in many educational systems, may be expected to erode social relationships between students. It concerns grade retention – i.e. the practice of letting academically challenged students repeat their grade. Inherent to grade retention is that retainees are taken away from their familiar class group and put in an unfamiliar one. As a result, existing friendship relations are disrupted and retainees have to establish new ones. Researchers expect that the label of “retainee” impedes their ability to form new friendships. As such, most scholars assume that retainees are at risk for social isolation, which, if true, would go directly against education’s integrating function. Few empirical studies, however, have been undertaken to investigate these assumptions.
This study investigates the role of grade retention in the quantity and the quality of adolescents’ friendships. Moreover, we investigate the direct effect of the percentage of retained students at school on friendship quantity and quality, and its moderating effect on the relationship between retention and these friendship dimensions. Multilevel analyses on data (2004-2005) from 11,759 students in 83 Flemish secondary schools suggest that secondary school retention was related to a lower number of friendships, but was unrelated to friendship quality. Primary school retention was unrelated to friendships in secondary education. Furthermore, all students attending schools with a higher percentage of retainees –even the promoted ones– had fewer and less qualitative friendships. Moreover, the retention composition moderated the effect of individual grade retention on friendships. As this widespread practice yields the risk of diminishing students’ social capital and promoting isolation, we argue that this intervention strategy should be abandoned.}},
  author       = {{Demanet, Jannick and Van Houtte, Mieke}},
  booktitle    = {{Research Network Sociology of Education, European Sociological Association Mid-term conference, Abstracts}},
  keywords     = {{Grade retention,Multilevel analyses,Friendships}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Lisbon, Portugal}},
  title        = {{Social capital erosion in education? A closer look at the social implications of grade retention}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}