IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cje/issued/v46y2013i2p469-496.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Middle school or junior high? How gradelevel configurations affect academic achievement

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth Dhuey

Abstract

Does the gradelevel configuration of a school affect academic achievement? This research examines the effect of attending a middle/junior high school on academic outcomes in British Columbia, Canada, relative to attending a school from kindergarten through grade 8. Using an OLS strategy, I find that attending a middle/junior high school reduces grades 4 to 7 achievement gains in math and reading by 0.1250.187 and 0.0550.108, respectively. Similarsized estimates are found for math using a 2SLS strategy. Finally, large negative effects on grade 10 and grade 12 English exams are also found.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth Dhuey, 2013. "Middle school or junior high? How gradelevel configurations affect academic achievement," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(2), pages 469-496, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:46:y:2013:i:2:p:469-496
    DOI: 10.1111/caje.12020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/caje.12020
    Download Restriction: access restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/caje.12020?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    2. David S. Lee, 2002. "Trimming for Bounds on Treatment Effects with Missing Outcomes," NBER Technical Working Papers 0277, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Daniel Aaronson & Lisa Barrow & William Sander, 2007. "Teachers and Student Achievement in the Chicago Public High Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 95-135.
    4. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    5. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2010. "Robust Inference with Clustered Data," Working Papers 318, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    6. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2010. "Robust Inference with Clustered Data," Working Papers 107, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    7. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    8. Hansen, Christian B., 2007. "Generalized least squares inference in panel and multilevel models with serial correlation and fixed effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 670-694, October.
    9. Shana Pribesh & Douglas Downey, 1999. "Why are residential and school moves associated with poor school performance?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(4), pages 521-534, November.
    10. Rockoff, Jonah E. & Lockwood, Benjamin B., 2010. "Stuck in the middle: Impacts of grade configuration in public schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1051-1061, December.
    11. Kelly Bedard & Chau Do, 2005. "Are Middle Schools More Effective?: The Impact of School Structure on Student Outcomes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(3).
    12. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    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. Elizabeth Dhuey & Justin Smith, 2014. "How important are school principals in the production of student achievement?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(2), pages 634-663, May.
    2. David Johnson & Robbie Brydon, 2012. "Ontario's Best Public Schools: 2009-2011," e-briefs 134, C.D. Howe Institute.
    3. David R. Johnson, 2012. "Are Middle Schools Good for Student Academic Achievement? Evidence from Ontario," e-briefs 141, C.D. Howe Institute.
    4. Hong, Kai & Zimmer, Ron & Engberg, John, 2018. "How does grade configuration impact student achievement in elementary and middle school grades?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 1-19.

    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. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2012. "Trade and Regional Inequality," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 88(2), pages 109-136, April.
    2. Laptieva, Nataliia, 2016. "Information sharing and the volume of private credit in transition: Evidence from Ukrainian bank-level panel dataAuthor-Name: Grajzl, Peter," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 434-449.
    3. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Naresh Bansal & Kissan Bansal & Minghui Ma & M. Babajide Wintoki, 2017. "Do CMO Incentives Matter? An Empirical Investigation of CMO Compensation and Its Impact on Firm Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1993-2015, June.
    5. Claudio Nuber & Patrick Velte, 2021. "Board gender diversity and carbon emissions: European evidence on curvilinear relationships and critical mass," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1958-1992, May.
    6. Stephan Litschig & María Lombardi, 2019. "Which tail matters? Inequality and growth in Brazil," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 155-187, June.
    7. Ahsan Kibria & Reza Oladi & Sherzod B. Akhundjanov, 2020. "Foreign direct investment and civil violence in Sub‐Saharan Africa," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 948-981, April.
    8. Yao Yao & Ruhul Salim, 2020. "Crowds in or crowds out? The effect of foreign direct investment on domestic investment in Chinese cities," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 2129-2154, May.
    9. Alper Demirdogen & Emine Olhan & Mehmet Hasdemir, 2022. "Heterogeneous impact of agricultural support policies: evidence from Turkey," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(10), pages 12203-12225, October.
    10. Roel Dom, 2017. "Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authorities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Silver Bullet or White Elephant," Discussion Papers 2017-01, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    11. Bannier, Christina E. & Bofinger, Yannik & Rock, Björn, 2022. "Corporate social responsibility and credit risk," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    12. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2016. "Democracy and growth: Evidence from a machine learning indicator," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 85-107.
    13. Paleologou, Suzanna-Maria, 2022. "Happiness, democracy and socio-economic conditions: Evidence from a difference GMM estimator," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    14. Wolf Heinrich Reuter & Olegs Tkacevs & Karlis Vilerts, 2018. "On the design of stabilising fiscal rules," Working Papers 2018/05, Latvijas Banka.
    15. Gustavo A. Marrero & Luis Servén, 2022. "Growth, inequality and poverty: a robust relationship?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 725-791, August.
    16. Aniket A. Kawatkar & Joel W. Hay & William Stohl & Michael B. Nichol, 2013. "Incremental Expenditure Of Biologic Disease Modifying Antirheumatic Treatment Using Instrumental Variables In Panel Data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(7), pages 807-823, July.
    17. Sergio A. Contreras & Andrew J. Greenlee, 2021. "Evaluating the effectiveness of ChileCompra's Entrepreneurship Centers policy," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 1262-1282, August.
    18. Robert Reed & Christina Lira & Lee Byung‐Ki & Junsoo Lee, 2016. "Free Trade Agreements and Foreign Direct Investment: The Role of Endogeneity and Dynamics," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(1), pages 176-201, July.
    19. Daniel Ştefan Armeanu & Georgeta Vintilă & Ştefan Cristian Gherghina, 2017. "Empirical Study towards the Drivers of Sustainable Economic Growth in EU-28 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, December.
    20. Youngho Kang & Byung-Yeon Kim, 2018. "Immigration and economic growth: do origin and destination matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(46), pages 4968-4984, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

    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:cje:issued:v:46:y:2013:i:2:p:469-496. 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: Prof. Werner Antweiler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceaaaea.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.