Contextual Effects in the High School Attainment Process

This paper presents a multidimensional mediation model of composition influences. Ability and social status of student body composition are distinguished, and the interpersonal and social comparison processes by which their effects tend to offset each other are specified. Whereas the contextual effects of ability were found to be negative, those of social status were positive. Since the two contextual variables themselves are positively and strongly correlated, their effects are almost exactly offsetting in the long run. The model is examined on data for a national sample first surveyed in 1955 as high school sophomores and followed up in 1973.