The current study examined whether students' social goals might help explain why students with learning disabilities (LD) often have lower social status in school. Participants included 336 rural and ethnically diverse high school students (of whom 16 had a LD diagnosis). Participants reported on their social status, popularity goals, and social…

The academic consequences of being popular are well established, but much less is known about the academic consequences of desiring to be popular. Extant research on popularity goals only focuses on the implications for students' school engagement, help-seeking, and academic achievement. The current study expands these findings by examining the…

Little extant research attempts to understand why rural African Americans engage in social relationships with peers in school. This is somewhat surprising as rural students' peer interactions often affect their scholastic desires, and peers can alter African Americans' academic performance. Hence, the current study examined both the presence and…

The current study follows two cohorts of fourth and fifth graders across 1 school year to better understand why some students change peer groups. The study focuses on popularity and intragroup social status. We examined whether differences between individuals' and group members' self-perceptions of popularity were related to changing peer groups.…

The extant literature on the social functioning of students with learning disabilities (LD) has indicated that whereas a majority belong to peer groups, a higher proportion are isolated and most have lower social status among peers in general than their typically achieving classmates. Although some work has examined these issues over short-term…