Gender-Matching School Effects on Girls’ Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Performance – Empirical Evidence From South Korea

Abstract

Gender-matching school environments may provide benefits for girls to enhance their performance. By using PISA data from South Korea, this paper suggests that the effects of single-sex schooling and a student-teacher’s gender matching are heterogeneous across different student groups. The gender-matching school environments are most positive to non-cognitive outcomes of girls at the highest tail of cognitive performance levels. By attending an all-girls school and being taught by a female teacher, high performing girls are as motivated and interested in pursuing careers in STEM fields as boys. However, single-sex schooling and female teachers do not produce positive effects on girls in lower performing groups. For median girls, single-sex schooling can even be detrimental to their non-cognitive performance. These results corroborate that gender-matching school environments can be a useful tool to promote female talent in STEM fields, but the effect cannot be generalized for public education for all students.