IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bon/boncrc/crctr224_2025_667.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Double in Trouble: Boys and Learning in School in Texas, North Carolina, and Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Ciccone
  • Federico Cingano
  • Walter Garcia-Fontes

Abstract

Children have been found to learn less in school when there are more boys in the classroom. We make two contributions to the literature. First, we revisit the empirical approach based on withinschool grade-level variation. We find that with grade retention (a feature of most school systems) the approach is subject to a selection bias that generates effects of boys on their classmates’ skills in the absence of any peer effects. We propose an alternative based on variation across enrollment cohorts. Second, we implement both approaches using data on around 3.6 million children in 14,000 primary schools in Texas, North Carolina, and Italy. We find adverse effects of boys on how much children learn in school using both the grade-level and the enrollment-cohort approach. The enrollment-cohort approach yields adverse effects on boys that are at least double the adverse effects on girls in all three school systems. By contrast, consistent with the selection bias we highlight, the grade-level approach yields similar adverse effects on boys and girls in the school systems with substantial grade retention.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Ciccone & Federico Cingano & Walter Garcia-Fontes, 2025. "Double in Trouble: Boys and Learning in School in Texas, North Carolina, and Italy," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2025_667, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_667
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp667
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Autor & David Figlio & Krzysztof Karbownik & Jeffrey Roth & Melanie Wasserman, 2016. "School Quality and the Gender Gap in Educational Achievement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 289-295, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Hu, Feng, 2015. "Do girl peers improve your academic performance?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 54-58.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Francesca Modena & Enrico Rettore & Giulia Martina Tanzi, 2021. "Does gender matter? The effect of high performing peers on academic performances," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1356, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    2. Luo, Yiyang & Yang, Songtao, 2023. "Gender peer effects on students’ educational and occupational expectations," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Dewan, Prerna & Ray, Tridip & Roy Chaudhuri, Arka & Tater, Kirti, 2024. "Gender peer effects in high schools: Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 470-494.
    4. 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).
    5. Wang, Muwen, 2023. "Opposite-gender friendships and learning performance of students: Evidence from China," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    6. Terrier, Camille, 2020. "Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(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. Muñoz, Juan Sebastián, 2018. "The economics behind the math gender gap: Colombian evidence on the role of sample selection," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 368-391.
    9. Sahoo, Soham & Klasen, Stephan, 2018. "Gender Segregation in Education and Its Implications for Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 11660, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Massimo Anelli & Giovanni Peri, 2019. "The Effects of High School Peers’ Gender on College Major, College Performance and Income," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(618), pages 553-602.
    11. Jean-William Laliberté, "undated". "Long-term Contextual Effects in Education: Schools and Neighborhoods," Working Papers 2019-01, Department of Economics, University of Calgary.
    12. Delaney, Judith M. & Devereux, Paul J., 2019. "Understanding gender differences in STEM: Evidence from college applications✰," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 219-238.
    13. Hill, Andrew J., 2017. "The positive influence of female college students on their male peers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 151-160.
    14. Peter, Noemi & Lundborg, Petter & Webbink, Dinand, 2015. "The Effect of a Sibling's Gender on Earnings, Education and Family Formation," IZA Discussion Papers 9128, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Liu, Jing & Lee, Monica & Gershenson, Seth, 2021. "The short- and long-run impacts of secondary school absences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    16. Schindler, Dirk & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 2012. "Debt shifting and ownership structure," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 635-647.
    17. Rigissa Megalokonomou & Yi Zhang, 2022. "How Good Am I? Effects and Mechanisms behind Salient Ranks," CESifo Working Paper Series 9991, CESifo.
    18. 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).
    19. 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.
    20. Motte Henrique & Oliveira Rodrigo, 2020. "The effect of class assignment on academic performance and the labour market: Evidence from a public federal university in Brazil," WIDER Working Paper Series wp2020-8, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peer effects in school; grade retention; selection bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_667. 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: CRC Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.crctr224.de .

    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.