Abstract: Peer relationship is essential for the healthy growth of adolescents. Positive peer relationships serve as fundamental support for adolescents to successfully pass through puberty,while negative peer relationships such as rejection and bullying may increase the risk of depression and hinder cognitive development. The formation of adolescent peer relationships and the role of family socioeconomic status in this process are important for understanding educational inequality and intergenerational mobility.
This paper examines the impact of family socioeconomic status on adolescent peer acceptance from the perspective of social stratification and explores its mediating mechanism,and discuss whether the mediation mechanism is differentiated among groups of different social classes. The data used in this paper is from China Education Panel Study (CEPS) for the school year of 2013 -2014. This study finds: (1) socioeconomic status has positive effects on adolescent peer acceptance,students whose parents have college education and above enjoy significant higher peer acceptance than those whose parents have high-school or below educational level;and (2) positive traits at individual-level,such as higher academic performance,self-efficacy,and sports hobbies,have a significant positive impact on peer acceptance,while art hobbies do not. Among them,only cognitive ability (academic performance) has slight mediating effect that transfers part of socioeconomic effect to adolescent peer acceptance. These findings show that in the context of Chinese middle schools,parental involvement in children's peer network is relatively low,possibly indicating that the inequality of family socioeconomic status is not passed on to classmate relationships. However,it may also mean that we have not yet found the real mechanism between family socioeconomic status and adolescent peer relationships,and further exploration is needed.

Key words: adolescents, socioeconomic status, peer relationship, acceptance