Description:
We examine student and teacher perceptions in Romania’s highly tracked school system. Focusing on perceptions of academic effort, ability, performance, and self-confidence, we find: (1) students just above a cutoff, who are tracked into a top class, have less favorable self-perceptions than those just below (i.e., “big-fish-little-pond” effects); (2) students more favorably perceive students in their own class (i.e., ingroup bias); (3) this bias is stronger in lower-achieving classes; (4) students perceive themselves more positively than others perceive them (i.e., illusory superiority); (5) this bias is stronger among lowerachieving students (i.e., Krueger-Dunning effects). Thus, tracking may not negatively affect students’ self-perceptions