Language in good company. Peer group effects on language development

Abstract

This study examines peer effects on language development through individual participant data meta-analysis of six German longitudinal studies. We investigated the effect of peers' average language skills on individual language development, controlling for average socioeconomic status (SES) and examining moderating effects of initial skills, multilingual status, and individual SES. Using consistent multilevel models followed by meta-analytic integration, we found no significant overall peer language effect and no moderating effect of SES. However, children with lower initial language proficiency benefited on average significantly from linguistically advanced peer groups, while effects for multilingual children were not consistently robust. Findings highlight the importance of classroom composition for linguistically disadvantaged children.