Supporting or Subverting Learning: Peer Group Patterns in Four Tracked Schools1

Why do proeducational peer patterns emerge in one classroom and anti‐educational relationships in another? Focusing on the school's role in generating these differences, this paper argues that peer group academic orientation is a reaction to the expectations and constraints of a specific educational structure. It analyzes the impact of one structur—tracking—on the peer group and speculatively explains the emergence of contrasting high‐ and low‐track patterns.