How School Characteristics Affect Boys’ and Girls’ Educational Success

This study investigated how school resources, being schools’ socioeconomic composition, proportion of girls, and proportion of highly educated teachers, and school practices, being schools’ application of well-rounded assessment methods, influenced girls’ and boys’ reading performance differently. The results showed that boys profited more than girls from having a large proportion of girls in school. Contrary to their expectations, girls gained more than boys from a school’s advantaged socioeconomic composition. The findings are likely to add to the debate over single-sex education, as districts experiment with single-sex classes and schools. Additionally, this study helps shed light on whether school characteristics affect girls’ and boys’ educational performance differently.

van Hek, M., Kraaykamp, G., & Pelzer, B. (2017): Do schools affect girls’ and boys’ reading performance differently? A multilevel study on the gendered effects of school resources and school practices. School Effectiveness and School Improvement. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2017.1382540