As was the case for family-level variables, the literature relating academic self-concept to adolescents' relationships with their peers is extremely limited. Only a single longitudinal study investigating the role that peers play in shaping adolescents' academic self-concept was identified. Murdock, Anderman, & Hodge (2000) examined the relationship between the educational aspirations of adolescents' peers and their own levels of academic self-concept in a study of 240 mostly African American or Caucasian students in a mid-Atlantic school. The findings suggested that adolescents who perceived their peers as holding higher educational aspirations in 7th grade held higher academic self-concepts in 9th grade than those who perceived their peers as holding lower educational aspirations. This finding held even after controlling for several other variables, such as their prior levels of achievement and academic self-concept. However, it is important to note that the measure of peer aspirations was taken from students' own reports, not their peers' reports, and may therefore tell us more about the benefit of adolescents' perceiving their peers as holding high aspirations as much as the benefit of adolescents associating with peers who hold high aspirations.