In the introduction of this dissertation, you were asked to think about a classroom full of class- mates. When questioning people about these childhood memories, people often say that the seating arrangements changed throughout the course of the year. Indeed, teachers often tell their students that it is time for a change on the first school day after a vacation (e.g., autumn break, Christmas, spring break). In the current dissertation, the seating arrangements were therefore measured repeatedly and at varying times within the school year. As a result, we could look at the importance of time of assessment as well as the persistence of the associa- tions between classroom seating arrangements and peer relationships.
The findings of Chapter 5 indeed demonstrated that the associations between proximity in the classroom and peer relations differ throughout the course of the school year. First, seating
arrangements at the start of the school year were associated with classroom judgments of liking and with dyadic perceptions of liking and popularity. Yet, seating arrangements in spring were only associated with dyadic perceptions of liking and no longer with group judgments of liking or popularity. Thus, distance seems to be more strongly related to status at the beginning of the year when relationships are developing. When peer relationships are established and classroom norms for status have been determined, seating arrangements may be of lesser importance.
This may be especially true for perceptions of popularity. We found that classmates perceived each other as more popular when they sat closer to each other in the beginning of the year. However, this association did not last until February/March, nor were seating arrangements in early spring related to popularity. Thus, when the group agrees on who is popular and who is not, seating arrangements may no longer affect individual or group judgments. This supports the idea that popularity is a measure of impact and reputation within the entire group, whereas liking is more dyadic and based on personal preference (Cillessen & Marks, 2011; LaFontana & Cillessen, 2002). The same might be true for friendships and peer groups. Friendships are based on mutual affection, support, and intimacy (Hartup & Stevens, 1997; Rubin et al., 2006), whereas peer groups are often based on stereotypes and reputation (e.g., ‘the nerds’, ‘the gothics’, ‘the sports people’; Bradford Brown & Dietz, 2009). Thus, one could hypothesize that seating arrangements are especially important for the development of peer group membership at the beginning of the year, whereas the association between physical proximity and dyadic judgments between friends are relatively stable throughout the year. Future studies may therefore include multiple assessments of seating arrangements throughout the school year in order to examine varia- tions in the strength of the associations with children’s peer relationships.
Knowing that the strength of the association between proximity and peer relationships differs throughout the school year and depends on the type of relationship that is measured, it would be interesting to examine whether the positive effects of changed seating arrangements vary throughout the school year. The rearrangement described in Chapter 7 was conducted once in the beginning of the year and lasted for 12 to 14 weeks. Could the same effects be observed when children are placed at different seats in early spring or in the final weeks of the school year? Perhaps the consequences of seating rearrangements can only be found when rela- tionships are formed or renewed. When relationships have been established by experiences throughout the school year, seating arrangements may no longer change students’ perceptions of one other.
Finally, not only the time within the year may matter, but also the amount of time that chil- dren spend in proximity to each other. The studies in this dissertation took place in elementary schools where children spend the majority of the day in the same classroom with the same peers in the same seating arrangements. However, seating arrangements sometimes change between lessons or over the course of a lesson. For example, teachers place students tempo- rarily at a different seat or in a different group of classmates for additional instruction or to promote collaborative learning (Kutnick et al., 2002; Kutnick & Kington, 2005). We did not look at the
effects of such temporary changes, nor have we looked at the amount of time children sat in the specific seating arrangement. Although experimental studies have shown that physical closeness at first encounter already predicts future relationships (Back et al., 2008), it is also known that contact duration strengthens positive perceptions (Pettigrew, 1998). Future studies should therefore examine the minimum amount of time needed to observe an association between children’s relationship with classmates and their physical closeness in the classroom.
Developmental Differences
The current studies were all conducted with 10-to-12 year-old children in their final years of primary education in The Netherlands. At that age, children are in school around 6 hours a day and 5 days a week. Most of that time, they sit in a classroom surrounded by classmates. This made them a particularly interesting group of participants for this new line of research on physical proximity and peer relationships. However, there are reasons to expect age-related differences or developmental changes with regard to the importance of seating arrangements for youth’s relationships with peers.
First, peers become more important when children become older (Rubin et al., 2009). Friends are important sources of emotional support especially in adolescence (Hartup & Stevens, 1997). At the same time, adolescents are increasingly interested in romantic partners and other-sex peers (Dijkstra & Veenstra, 2011; Feiring, 1999; Furman & Wehner, 1997). One could therefore hypothesize that closeness to best friends in the classroom becomes increasingly important in adolescence. Or, that proximity may become more important for the development of mixed-sex or romantic relationships. At the same time, adolescents become more independent and their social net- work expands beyond the school context (Bradford Brown & Dietz, 2009). They have part-time jobs and are member of a sports team or other clubs. Thus, they can easily meet with a classmate after school or spend time with peers other than classmates. One could therefore also hypothesize that being physically close to specific peers in the classroom becomes less important. Thus, opposing hypotheses with regard to age-related differences can be formed and should be tested in future research.
In addition, there is an important contextual change that occurs when children become older, namely the transition to secondary school. Unlike children in elementary classrooms, adolescents in secondary education often can decide where they want to sit in the classroom. Based on the findings of Chapter 5, one can expect that adolescents will then use the classroom seating arrangements to express their relationship with classmates. Thus, they will prefer to sit next to peers they like or admire, such as friends and peer group members. As a result, the associations between classroom seating and peer affiliations will be more striking. At the same time, the effects of an experimental manipulation may be limited or even absent. Even if teachers in secondary schools would arrange the classroom seatings, adolescents are in different classrooms with varying arrangements throughout the school day. Thus, they no longer sit close to the same peers all day, but next to different peers for shorter durations. As a result, a planned rearrange- ment of classroom seatings may no longer be effective to improve negative relationships.