Single-Sex Schools, Student Achievement, and Course Selection: Evidence from Rule-Based Student Assignments in Trinidad and Tobago

C. Kirabo Jackson

NBER Working Paper No. 16817
Issued in February 2011, Revised in December 2011
NBER Program(s):Children, Economics of Education, Labor Studies, Public Economics

Existing studies on single-sex schooling suffer from biases because students who attend single-sex schools differ in unmeasured ways from those who do not. In Trinidad and Tobago students are assigned to secondary schools based on an algorithm allowing one to address self-selection bias and estimate the causal effect of attending a single-sex school versus a similar coeducational school. While students (particularly females) with strong expressed preferences for single-sex schools benefit, most students perform no better at single-sex schools. Girls at single-sex schools take fewer sciences courses and more traditionally female subjects.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w16817

Published: Jackson, C. Kirabo., "Single-sex schools, student achievement, and course selection: Evidence from rule-based student assignments in Trinidad and Tobago," Journal of Public Economics, Volume 96, Issues 1–2, February 2012, Pages 173-187. citation courtesy of

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