IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bri/cmpowp/08-186.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Girl Power? An analysis of peer effects using exogenous changes in the gender make-up of the peer group

Author

Listed:
  • Steven Proud

Abstract

The effect of a child’s peers has long been regarded as an important factor in affecting their educational outcomes. However, these effects are often difficult to estimate. I use exogenous changes in the proportion of girls within English school cohorts to estimate the effect of a more female peer group, estimated in all schools, and in a subset of schools that only include one classroom per academic year. I find significant negative effects of a more female peer group on boys’ outcomes in English. In maths and science, all pupils benefit from a more female peer group up until age 11.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Proud, 2009. "Girl Power? An analysis of peer effects using exogenous changes in the gender make-up of the peer group," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 08/186, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
  • Handle: RePEc:bri:cmpowp:08/186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2008/wp186.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diane Whitmore, 2005. "Resource and Peer Impacts on Girls' Academic Achievement: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 199-203, May.
    2. Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2011. "Mechanisms and Impacts of Gender Peer Effects at School," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-33, April.
    3. Adele Atkinson & Paul Gregg & Brendon McConnell, 2006. "The Result of 11 Plus Selection: An Investigation into Opportunities and Outcomes for Pupils in Selective LEAs," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 06/150, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    4. Proud, S., 2014. "Girl Power? An Analysis Of Peer Effects Using Exogenous Changes In The Gender Make-Up Of The Peer Group," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 14(3), pages 5-18.
    5. Machin, Stephen & McNally, Sandra, 2008. "The literacy hour," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1441-1462, June.
    6. Stephen Machin & Sandra McNally, 2005. "Gender and Student Achievement in English Schools," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 357-372, Autumn.
    7. Thomas S. Dee, 2007. "Teachers and the Gender Gaps in Student Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    8. repec:pri:edures:23.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Lefgren, Lars, 2004. "Educational peer effects and the Chicago public schools," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 169-191, September.
    10. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    11. Zeynep Hansen & Hideo Owan & Jie Pan, 2006. "The Impact of Group Diversity on Performance and Knowledge Spillover -- An Experiment in a College Classroom," NBER Working Papers 12251, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Caroline Hoxby, 2000. "Peer Effects in the Classroom: Learning from Gender and Race Variation," NBER Working Papers 7867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Donald R. Winkler, 1975. "Educational Achievement and School Peer Group Composition," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 10(2), pages 189-204.
    14. Mora, Toni & Oreopoulos, Philip, 2011. "Peer effects on high school aspirations: Evidence from a sample of close and not-so-close friends," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 575-581, August.
    15. Deborah Wilson, 2004. "Which Ranking? The Impact of a 'Value-Added' Measure of Secondary School Performance," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 37-45.
    16. Simon Burgess & Brendon McConnell & Carol Propper & Deborah Wilson, 2004. "Girls Rock, Boys Roll: An Analysis of the Age 14–16 Gender Gap in English Schools," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 51(2), pages 209-229, May.
    17. Summers, Anita A & Wolfe, Barbara L, 1977. "Do Schools Make a Difference?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(4), pages 639-652, September.
    18. Dills, Angela K., 2005. "Does cream-skimming curdle the milk? A study of peer effects," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 19-28, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. 30. Selected readings on Women economics by the Euro-American Associations, 2001-2017
      by MCG Blogs de Economía in Euro-American Association: World Development on 2018-03-17 18:42:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schneeweis, Nicole & Zweimüller, Martina, 2012. "Girls, girls, girls: Gender composition and female school choice," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 482-500.
    2. Wen Fan, 2011. "School tenure and student achievement," Working Papers 201124, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    3. Proud, S., 2014. "Girl Power? An Analysis Of Peer Effects Using Exogenous Changes In The Gender Make-Up Of The Peer Group," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 14(3), pages 5-18.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adele Atkinson & Simon Burgess & Paul Gregg & Carol Propper & Steven Proud, 2008. "The Impact of Classroom Peer Groups on Pupil GCSE Results," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 08/187, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    2. Richard Murphy & Felix Weinhardt, 2020. "Top of the Class: The Importance of Ordinal Rank," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 87(6), pages 2777-2826.
    3. Sohn, Hosung, 2016. "Mean and distributional impact of single-sex high schools on students’ cognitive achievement, major choice, and test-taking behavior: Evidence from a random assignment policy in Seoul, Korea," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 155-175.
    4. Berlinski, Samuel & Busso, Matias & Giannola, Michele, 2023. "Helping struggling students and benefiting all: Peer effects in primary education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    5. Hsieh, Chih-Sheng & Lin, Xu, 2017. "Gender and racial peer effects with endogenous network formation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 135-147.
    6. Briole, Simon, 2021. "Are girls always good for boys? Short and long term effects of school peers’ gender," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    7. Anne Ardila Brenøe & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "Exposure to More Female Peers Widens the Gender Gap in STEM Participation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(4), pages 1009-1054.
    8. Iversen, Jon Marius Vaag & Bonesrønning, Hans, 2015. "Conditional gender peer effects?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 19-28.
    9. Kang, Changhui, 2007. "Classroom peer effects and academic achievement: Quasi-randomization evidence from South Korea," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 458-495, May.
    10. Silvia Mendolia & Alfredo R Paloyo & Ian Walker, 2018. "Heterogeneous effects of high school peers on educational outcomes," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 613-634.
    11. Eisenkopf, Gerald & Hessami, Zohal & Fischbacher, Urs & Ursprung, Heinrich W., 2015. "Academic performance and single-sex schooling: Evidence from a natural experiment in Switzerland," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 123-143.
    12. Dustmann, Christian & Ku, Hyejin & Kwak, Do Won, 2018. "Why Are Single-Sex Schools Successful?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 79-99.
    13. Simone Balestra & Aurelien Sallin & Stefan C. Wolter, 2020. "High-Ability Influencers? The Heterogeneous Effects of Gifted Classmates," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0170, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    14. Jason M. Fletcher, 2010. "Social interactions and smoking: evidence using multiple student cohorts, instrumental variables, and school fixed effects," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 466-484, April.
    15. Doris, Aedín & O’Neill, Donal & Sweetman, Olive, 2013. "Gender, single-sex schooling and maths achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 104-119.
    16. Oosterbeek, Hessel & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2014. "Gender peer effects in university: Evidence from a randomized experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 51-63.
    17. Francis Kramarz & Stephen Machin & Amine Ouazad, 2008. "What Makes a Test Score ? The Respective Contributions of Pupils, Schools and Peers in Achievement in English Primary Education," Working Papers 2008-21, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    18. Stephen Gibbons & Shqiponja Telhaj, 2016. "Peer Effects: Evidence from Secondary School Transition in England," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(4), pages 548-575, August.
    19. Wennberg, Karl & Norgren, Axel, 2021. "Models of Peer Effects in Education," Working Papers 21/3, Stockholm School of Economics, Center for Educational Leadership and Excellence.
    20. Jason Fletcher, 2012. "Peer influences on adolescent alcohol consumption: evidence using an instrumental variables/fixed effect approach," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(4), pages 1265-1286, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    peer groups; education;

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bri:cmpowp:08/186. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmbriuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.