Social Passivity and Grades Achieved Among Adolescents in Junior High School

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to gain knowledge as to how social passivity in school is related to the grades pupils achieve. The relation between social passivity and school grades received in eight different subjects, varying according to familiarity to teachers, demands of cooperation with peers and demands for public display of learning results were investigated. Five hundred and one pupils in grades 8, 9 and 10 (aged 13—16 years) from two secondary schools in a city in the southern part of Norway participated in the study. Results indicate a tendency for the more socially passive pupils to receive significantly lower grades than the more socially active pupils in subjects characterized by low familiarity to teachers, high demands of cooperation with peers and high demands for public display of learning results, such as oral and practical-esthetical subjects. In contrast, no tendency for lower grades among the socially passive pupils was found for mathematics.