Causal effects of single-sex schools on college entrance exams and college attendance: random assignment in Seoul high schools.
Despite the voluminous literature on the potentials of single-sex schools, there is no consensus on the effects of single-sex schools because of student selection of school types. We exploit a unique feature of schooling in Seoul-the random assignment of students into single-sex versus coeducational high schools-to assess causal effects of single-sex schools on college entrance exam scores and college attendance. Our validation of the random assignment shows comparable socioeconomic backgrounds and prior academic achievement of students attending single-sex schools and coeducational schools, which increases the credibility of our causal estimates of single-sex school effects. The three-level hierarchical model shows that attending all-boys schools or all-girls schools, rather than coeducational schools, is significantly associated with higher average scores on Korean and English test scores. Applying the school district fixed-effects models, we find that single-sex schools produce a higher percentage of graduates who attended four-year colleges and a lower percentage of graduates who attended two-year junior colleges than do coeducational schools. The positive effects of single-sex schools remain substantial, even after we take into account various school-level variables, such as teacher quality, the student-teacher ratio, the proportion of students receiving lunch support, and whether the schools are public or private.
Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. hypark@sas.upenn.edu
Hyunjoon
H
Park
Jere R
JR
Behrman
Jaesung
J
Choi
D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D003099:College Admission Test / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017145:Models, Educational; D011897:Random Allocation; D056910:Republic of Korea; D012570:School Admission Criteria / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012574:Schools; D012931:Social Environment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014495:Universities