Peer influence on students has been of interest to sociologists for some time. But most studies of elementary classroom interaction have focused primarily on teacher-student interaction. A study of peer influence on other group members was designed to explain why students assigned to low ability groups became inattentive more frequently than…

Little is known about how children gain interpersonal access in settings where adults are not present or are unavailable. This study sought to describe children's strategies for access into and withdrawal from peer interactive episodes in a nursery school. Data were collected from direct observations of two groups of children. One group attended…