THE SOCIAL REPUTATION OF A CHILD AT SCHOO L

Peer nomination were used to evaluate the social reputation of 230 fra ncophone students enroled in the second, third and fourth grades of Mo ntreal elementary schools. Children were assessed collectively by thei r peers on eight dimensions requiring both social and academic judgeme nts. Cluster analysis of classmate judgements yielded four distinct so cial reputations. Two groups of children had extremely differentiated profiles: one group was judged quite positively on all eight dimension s, while a second was characterized as uniformally negative on all of these indices. A third group appeared average on each of the measures, while a fourth group was judged average on social functioning, but po or on academic indices. A comparison of peer and teacher evaluations r evealed a high level of convergence in the perception of social reputa tion, especially for the two most extreme groups.