IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scotjp/v51y2004i2p209-229.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Girls Rock, Boys Roll: An Analysis of the Age 14–16 Gender Gap in English Schools

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Burgess
  • Brendon McConnell
  • Carol Propper
  • Deborah Wilson

Abstract

We investigate possible explanations for the educational gender gap at age 16. We employ a national dataset of matched exam results of the cohort of pupils who took Key Stage 3 tests in 1999 and GCSEs in 2001. Our key result is the sheer consistency of the gender gap, across both the attainment and the ability distribution, with regard to both raw outcomes and value added. It is primarily driven by performance differentials in English. The generality of the gender gap suggests its source is not within‐school practice, which means that policy directed at improving such practice may be misplaced.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:51:y:2004:i:2:p:209-229
    DOI: 10.1111/j.0036-9292.2004.00303.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0036-9292.2004.00303.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.0036-9292.2004.00303.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jo Sparkes, 1999. "Schools, Education and Social Exclusion," CASE Papers 029, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    2. Adele Atkinson & Deborah Wilson, 2003. "Measuring Pupil Attainment in English Secondary Schools: A Preliminary Analysis," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/063, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    3. Caroline Hoxby, 2000. "Peer Effects in the Classroom: Learning from Gender and Race Variation," NBER Working Papers 7867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Pekkarinen, Tuomas, 2005. "Gender Differences in Educational Attainment: Evidence on the Role of the Tracking Age from a Finnish Quasi-Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 1897, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Hans Bonesrønning, 2008. "The Effect Of Grading Practices On Gender Differences In Academic Performance," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 245-264, July.
    3. Richard Murphy & Felix Weinhardt, 2020. "Top of the Class: The Importance of Ordinal Rank," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(6), pages 2777-2826.
    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. Cheti Nicoletti & Birgitta Rabe, 2013. "Inequality in Pupils' Test Scores: How Much do Family, Sibling Type and Neighbourhood Matter?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(318), pages 197-218, April.
    6. Tuomas Pekkarinen, 2008. "Gender Differences in Educational Attainment: Evidence on the Role of Tracking from a Finnish Quasi‐experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(4), pages 807-825, December.
    7. Ammermüller, Andreas & Dolton, Peter J., 2006. "Pupil-teacher gender interaction effects on scholastic outcomes in England and the USA," ZEW Discussion Papers 06-060, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Richard Murphy & Felix Weinhardt, 2013. "The Importance of Rank Position," CEP Discussion Papers dp1241, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Simon Burgess & Brendon McConnell & Carol Propper & Deborah Wilson, 2004. "Sorting and Choice in English Secondary Schools," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 04/111, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    10. Juan Sebastian Munoz, 2014. "Re-estimating the Gender Gap in Colombian Academic Performance," Research Department Publications IDB-WP-469, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. B. Jahanshahi, 2014. "Separating Gender Composition Effect from Peer Effects in Education," Working Papers wp932, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    4. Laibson, David I. & Madrian, Brigitte & Reynolds, Gwendolyn & Beshears, John Leonard & Choi, James J., 2013. "Testimonials Do Not Convert Patients from Brand to Generic Medication," Scholarly Articles 11920070, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    5. 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.
    6. Yu, Han, 2020. "Am I the big fish? The effect of ordinal rank on student academic performance in middle school," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 18-41.
    7. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2010. "Peer group effects on the academic performance of Italian students," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(17), pages 2203-2215.
    8. Joshua D. Angrist & Sarah R. Cohodes & Susan M. Dynarski & Parag A. Pathak & Christopher R. Walters, 2016. "Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston's Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 275-318.
    9. Pekkarinen, Tuomas, 2012. "Gender Differences in Education," IZA Discussion Papers 6390, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Ludovica Gazze & Claudia Persico & Sandra Spirovska, 2024. "The Long-Run Spillover Effects of Pollution: How Exposure to Lead Affects Everyone in the Classroom," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 357-394.
    11. Helmuth Cremer & Dario Maldonado, 2013. "Mixed oligopoly in education," Documentos de Trabajo 10500, Universidad del Rosario.
    12. Verena Wondratschek & Karin Edmark & Markus Frolich, 2013. "The Short- and Long-term Effects of School Choice on Student Outcomes - Evidence from a School Choice Reform in Sweden," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 111-112, pages 71-101.
    13. Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2008. "Peer effects in Austrian schools," Studies in Empirical Economics, in: Christian Dustmann & Bernd Fitzenberger & Stephen Machin (ed.), The Economics of Education and Training, pages 133-155, Springer.
    14. Naomi Friedman-Sokuler & Claudia Senik, 2025. "From pink collar to lab coat: cultural persistence and diffusion of socialist gender norms," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-34, March.
    15. David Figlio & Umut Özek, 2019. "Unwelcome Guests? The Effects of Refugees on the Educational Outcomes of Incumbent Students," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(4), pages 1061-1096.
    16. Rigissa Megalokonomou & Yi Zhang, 2022. "How Good Am I? Effects and Mechanisms behind Salient Ranks," CESifo Working Paper Series 9991, CESifo.
    17. John Eric Humphries & Juanna Schr¿ter Joensen & Gregory F. Veramendi, 2025. "Complementarities in High School and College Investments," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2446, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    18. 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.
    19. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Lung‐Fei Lee & Vincent Boucher, 2020. "Specification and estimation of network formation and network interaction models with the exponential probability distribution," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(4), pages 1349-1390, November.
    20. Seul-Ki Kim & Young-Chul Kim, 2021. "Coed vs Single-Sex Schooling: An Empirical Study on Mental Health Outcomes," Working Papers 2103, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • L3 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise

    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:bla:scotjp:v:51:y:2004:i:2:p:209-229. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sesssea.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.