Most Western societies are aware of the diverse challenges and needs associated with the education of linguistically, socially and culturally diverse student bodies. Lacking competences in the majority language have been repeatedly identified to play a crucial role for success in the educational system as they are premises for comprehension of instruction and success in school examinations (Gogolin 2009). The acquisition of language competences depends on a variety of factors, including language contact and exposure, as well as on motivational factors (e.g. Lambert 1981). Social relations within the family, school and peer context allow for diverse learning opportunities by providing language input. These contexts shape students’ development of identity, their academic interests, knowledge, attitudes and motivation (e.g. Ecarius 2012). The individual social environment also allows access to social and cultural capital, which in turn strongly determines educational success (Bourdieu 1983; Coleman 1988).

The fact that the language input children receive has a major influence on their language development is without controversy. This has been repeatedly shown for young children and input received within the family (Goodman et al. 2008; Leseman et al. 2010). Although peer relations become more important in adolescence, they have hardly been studied with respect to their role in influencing the development of multilingual competences. Yet, empirical studies provide some tentative evidence on the impact of peers on individual language development. Early childhood studies have shown that children´s language achievement is positively related to their peers´ language abilities (e.g. Mashburn et al. 2009). Migrant students that have more native peers or spend more time speaking the majority language are more likely to improve their language skills (Carhill et al. 2008). Further, research indicates that peer relations have an impact on individual academic as well as language learning motivation, attitudes towards languages and ethnic identity which in turn are related to language achievement (Masgoret & Gardner 2003; Kindermann & Vollet 2014). Therefore, studying peer relations and peer influences seems promising to gain further insights into the processes of multilingual development.

However, the measurement of language competences and attitudes of peers is associated with several challenges, one of which being the fact that multilingual assessments are usually limited to classrooms or schools. Information on the language skills and attitudes of peers outside these  contexts is typically assessed through the respondents´ ratings of their peers’ abilities, implying that the quality of this data highly depends on the quality of ratings. Findings suggest that the quality of judgements are mainly influenced by characteristics of person that judges, the person being judged, the relationship between the two and the trait being assessed (Bratko et al. 2006; Stipek 1981). Nevertheless, contrary findings related to these factors have been revealed. While a high convergence of self and other people’s ratings has been found for close friends, familiarity has as well been identified to lead to biased judgements (Siebert 2006). As such, the questions arise (1) whether ratings of students adequately capture multilingual competences and attitudes within their peer networks, and (2) which factors influence the validity of these ratings.

The present contribution addresses these questions by presenting results from a pilot study to validate respondents´ ratings of their peers’ language competences and attitudes. Using a subsample of monolingual and multilingual teenage students, the contribution investigates student’s ability to judge peers in different domains of language competences and other motivational traits. First, the question is addressed whether respondents’ judgements adequately reflect standardized test results and peers´ self-reported information. Second, background variables that may determine the quality of judgements are investigated with respect to their influence on students’ ratings.

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