Exploring Finnish fifth-grade pupils’ academic peer assistance networks

Abstract

The study examined Finnish elementary school pupils’ academic peer assistance and its relation to their demographic backgrounds of gender and language, social networking with schoolmates, and orientation toward sociodigital participation. The participants (188 fifth graders) responded to a social networking questionnaire on schoolmate and academic peer assistance networks and a questionnaire probing pupils’ digital engagement. Our analysis indicated that pupils’ schoolmate networks were denser than the academic peer assistance networks and less homophilic concerning pupils’ language background than gender. There were no gender differences regarding academic peer assistance. We distinguished passive (n = 34), medium (n = 124), and active (n = 30) helpers, with no gender or language influence, other than homophily. The active helpers often participated in online social networking and were better connected with their peers than the passive helpers. We argue that spontaneously emerging academic peer assistance should be deliberately fostered by pedagogic support from teachers.