Classroom-level peer self-regulation as a predictor of individual self-regulatory and social-emotional development in Brazil

Peers' skills matter for students' development in classroom contexts. Using a sample of 2950 students in 173 classrooms in public primary schools in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the present study sought to validate an observational measure of classroom-level peer self-regulation and then used this measure to predict individual students' gains in cognitive regulation and social-emotional skills over an academic year. The classroom-level measure of peer self-regulation showed high levels of internal reliability and predictive validity. Specifically, higher levels of baseline peer self-regulation were associated with greater gains in individual students' performance on cognitive regulation and emotion knowledge tasks. These associations largely did not depend on students' baseline skills. This paper introduces a novel approach for measuring peer self-regulation at the classroom level, contributes to the literature on peer effects, and also expands the literature on students' social-emotional development in diverse global contexts.