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Ranking up for STEM: The Influence of School Rank on STEM Degrees

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  • Shahbazian, Roujman
  • Dadgar, Iman

Abstract

This study examines the influence of pupils’ ordinal positions in the distribution of grades in their 9th grade school cohort on subsequent tertiary-level STEM degrees, at age 30. Population-wide data from Sweden between the years 1990-1997 is used. The identification strategy uses differences between pupils’ ranks in their school and their ranks in the country-wide ability distribution after conditioning on school-cohort fixed effects and school-level grade distributions. The findings reveal a relative gratification of being at the top of the school ability distribution. Both boys and girls who occupy a higher rank in 9th grade are more likely to acquire a STEM degree, although the results are more pronounced for boys than girls. While a slight relative deprivation of being at the bottom of the ability distribution is seen for boy, girls are not impacted at all. This result is also robust when measuring the ranks within each gender in-group, meaning comparing boys with boys, and girls with girls. Implying that, in connection to STEM degrees, women are less receptive to ordinal rank in school compared to men.

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  • Shahbazian, Roujman & Dadgar, Iman, 2024. "Ranking up for STEM: The Influence of School Rank on STEM Degrees," SocArXiv byct5, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:byct5
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/byct5
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    References listed on IDEAS

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