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One cohort that has not been given extended attention in the period during which transition takes place is academically high-performing students. This research study uniquely synthesises some of these key factors by investigating how students in mixed-ability, seventh-grade classrooms across Australia, Peru, Scotland, South Korea, Spain and Vietnam regard a hypothetical, academically able peer. The fictitious student's intellectual ability, positive social traits and popularity varied across the six countries involved in this study, and were observed according to the gender of the perceiver. More specifically, the perceived popularity of a high-performing boy or girl was reported differently among the country groups. In Scotland, for example, the authors uncovered a potential risk to female social status arising from peer reactions to her academic achievement. Yet in Vietnam, female study participants maintained a positive perception of both hypothetical students, regardless of gender. The results of this study are discussed herein.

This cross-national scenario based study examined fourth-grade students' perceptions of high-performing classmates in terms of their expected intellectual abilities, positive social qualities and popularity among their peers across seven countries. The overall results show that high academic achievements predominantly lead to positive expectations within the peer group. However, pronounced differences were found between the countries. The results indicated that students from Spanish-speaking countries viewed their potential high-performing peers most favorably, followed by students from Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany. The least favorable expectations, but by no means negative attitude, were exhibited by students from the two East-Asian countries Korea and Vietnam. In contrast, the respondents' gender and the gender of the hypothetical successful classmates had less influence on student perceptions of high-performers. These findings have implications for the educational provision of high performing students in different cross-national contexts.

This study explores how secondary school students perceive high-performing potential classmates. A total of 1,794 seventh- and 10th-grade students from five countries completed a questionnaire measuring their expectations of hypothetical male and female high-performing classmates in three categories: intellectual ability, positive social qualities, and popularity. Across the five countries represented in this study, analyses of variance indicated that students did not report negative attitudes toward the three potential characteristics of a hypothetical gifted peer. Vietnamese students in particular reported more positive observations about the hypothetical classmate than their Australian, Peruvian, South Korean, and Spanish counterparts. Differing cross-national attitudes toward high-performing peers and the implications therein are discussed.

Previous empirical studies have yielded inconclusive results about peer perceptions of academically high performing students. The purpose of this study was to investigate students' perceptions of the intellectual ability, positive social qualities, and popularity of a hypothetical new high performing classmate. Participants were 1060 Vietnamese, South Korean, British, Australian, Peruvian, and Spanish boys and girls in 10th grade. The results revealed that the perceptions of academically high performing classmates differed by country group. Positive perceptions of intellectual ability and social qualities were commonly found in all countries except the two Asian countries (Vietnam and South Korea), where the students reported more neutral views of high performers. In conclusion, it is argued that there is no evidence for possible iatrogenic effects of gifted education programs aiming at high achievements.