Peer Influence and Educational Preferences: Direct Influence or Access to Friends’ Educational Resources?

While educational preferences can be influenced by friends through various mechanisms, the specific pathways of this influence remain underexplored. This study employs random-coefficient multilevel stochastic actor-oriented models to examine a longitudinal sample of Hungarian students (N_students = 493, N_classes = 21) observed from fifth to seventh grade. The study investigates how friends' preferences and friends' parental resources influence educational preferences while accounting for friends' academic achievement and friendship selection. The analysis identifies distinct pathways through which friends can influence educational preferences. The study suggests that adolescents do not adjust their secondary school track preferences to conform to their friends' preferences but are instead affected by the indirect influence of their friends' parental background. Students who befriend adolescents with highly educated parents are more likely to adjust their preferences toward the academically oriented secondary school track.