Several studies have revealed that older students in a year group reach higher achievement scores than younger students in that group. But less is known about how students' relative age in class relates to their self-perception of academic achievement, their social acceptance in class and to how teachers judge their abilities. Therefore, we examined relative age effects within class on students' academic self-concept, peer relations, grades, and teachers’ secondary school recommendation. Analyses were based on a sample of N = 18,956 German fourth graders, who had never been retained or accelerated. We applied multilevel regression to control for covariates at the individual and classroom level. There were no substantial relative age effects within class across any of the outcomes, except for a small advantage for the youngest in their reading self-concept. Our findings therefore contradict the common assumption that younger students in class are disadvantaged compared to their older classmates.

几项研究表明，一年级组中的大学生比该组中的年轻学生获得更高的成绩分数。但是，关于学生在课堂上的相对年龄与他们对学业成就的自我认知，在课堂上的社会接受度以及与教师如何评判他们的能力之间的关系知之甚少。因此，我们研究了班级中相对年龄的影响对学生的学业自我概念，同伴关系，年级和教师中学推荐的影响。分析基于N的样本 = 18,956名德国四年级学生，他们从未被保留或加速。我们应用了多级回归来控制个人和教室级别的协变量。除了对年幼的孩子阅读自我概念的小好处外，在所有结局中，班级内的年龄没有实质性的相对影响。因此，我们的发现与普遍的假设相矛盾，即，与年长的同学相比，班上的年轻学生处于不利地位。