In same-age peer-tutoring, the tutor's role carries more status than the tutee's, and assigning the more competent pupil to tutor is more status congruent (equitable) than the reverse; both facets of status should therefore promote achievement and satisfaction in peer tutoring. A series of studies, involving first a simulation then actual tutoring experiments with college students, and finally experiments with Junior High pupils, was conducted to develop and test certain theoretical models built on the above considerations. For college students, role assignment was random within same-sex pairs of partners who were of equal (or unequal) competence. Achievement and attitude assessments followed tutor training and tutoring. Then roles were reversed in half the pairs, before further training and tutoring. For Junior High pupils, roles were reversed in all pairs halfway through a four-week period of daily tutoring. Overall, both performance and satisfaction varied directly with being the tutor and being in a status-congruent relationship. For instance, they declined most in more competent tutors who were made tutees. Turn-taking in peer tutoring thus "optimizes" joint gains by balancing off decrements and increments in rates of gain in learning and satisfaction. (Author)