Empowering Adolescents to Transform Schools: Lessons from a Behavioral Targeting
American Economic Review · 2025 · Volume 115 · Issue 2
Abstract
We test the effectiveness of a behavioral program grounded in the idea that status granting and self-persuasion might yield a robust behavioral change in disadvantaged adolescents. We enlist socially connected senior middle school students with high emotional intelligence as "student-teachers" and entrust them with delivering a curriculum to their junior peers. The program empowers student-teachers, leading them to improve their social environment. It reduces disciplinary incidents and antisocial behavior among student-teachers and their friendship networks. The intervention significantly enhances the likelihood of admission to selective high schools for student-teachers, offering a cost-effective way to help disadvantaged adolescents escape neighborhood disadvantages.
Keywords
National Government Expenditures and Education, Analysis of Education, Education and Inequality, Education: Government Policy, Fertility, Family Planning, Child Care, Children, Youth, Economic Development: Human Resources, Human Development, Income Distribution, Migration
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