The purpose of this study is to get some answers about the nature of the relation about school effectiveness (Postlethwaite and Ross), peer-to-peer violence and academic performance of the students.  The research question would be whether effective schools have lower rates of peer-to-peer violence .

PIRLS 2011 data shows that students who are bullied at school have lower reading achievement than their peers. We also know that reading achievement of students is positively related with higher parents’ education. When we control relation between student peer-to-peer violence and reading achievement with highest education of either parent we see that reading achievement of bullied students is lower than reading achievement of non-bullied students in all social groups (if we define groups by the parents’ education).

Education has been widely studied in the social context since the Coleman Report. Numerous studies have shown the relationships between the socio-economic status and characteristics such as academic achievement (Brown, 1990; Caldas & Bankston, 1997). ). SES factors have been repeatedly shown to be associated with a home literacy environment and reading achievement (Noble et. al, 2006) to name just a few.

Not so many studies have dealt with relation between bullying and academic performance. Few articles  have found(Rothon, 2001) that vistims fo peer violence have lower academic achievement than their peers.

In this study we would like to (1) establish a variable which would describe the value of the cultural capital of the family of the student (we would define the notion of cultural capital beforehand) (2) define a criterion for effective schools according to the cultural capital of the students (3) check the peer-to-peer violence in schools according to different school and student characteristics (4) make a complex model with relation between home background (cultural capital plus other variables), peer to peer violence,  and reading achievement.

Brown, B. B. (1990). Academic achievement and social acceptance. The Education Digest, 55, 57-60. Caldas, S. J., & Bankston, C. (1997). Effect of school population socioeconomic status on individual academic achievement. The Journal of Educational Research, 90, 269-277. Noble, K. G., Farah, M. J., McCandliss, B. D. (2006) Socioeconomic Background Modulates Cognition-Achievement Relationships in Reading. Cognitive Development 21(3), 349-368 Postlethwaite, T. Neville, and Kenneth N. Ross (1992). Effective Schools in Reading: Implications for Educational Planners: An Exploratory Study. November. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, The Hague, The Netherlands. Rothon, C. et al (2001). Can social support protect bullied adolescents from adverse outcomes? A prospective study on the effects of bullying on the educational achievement and mental health of adolescents at secondary schools in East London. Journal of Adolescence 34 (2011) 579–588.