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  5. Empowering Adolescents to Transform Schools: Lessons from a Behavioral Targeting

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Empowering Adolescents to Transform Schools: Lessons from a Behavioral Targeting

  • Sule Alan
  • Elif Kubilay
American Economic Review (Forthcoming)

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 anti-social 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.

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