❝Seating positions in classrooms are related to social status.❞
How do seating positions of students relate to their position in social networks? We found that students who were perceived as more likeable sat in the middle column of the classroom and were seated close to each other. Locations inhabited by dominant students were positioned further from teachers and further apart from each other. The increase of the values of degree centrality, closeness centrality, and eigenvector centrality was noticeable in desks positioned further away from the teacher.
By comparing these results with studies examining seating arrangements as a means of distributing learning opportunities through student participation, specific zones can be observed in the classroom that could benefit the children seated there in their roles as students and at the same time in their roles as classmates. In other words, teachers can potentially influence both social status of students among their classmates and their school engagement by seating them in specific locations.