Academic self‐concept, gender and single‐sex schooling

Abstract

This article assesses gender differences in academic self‐concept for a cohort of children born in 1958 (the National Child Development Study). It addresses the question of whether attending single‐sex or co‐educational schools affected students' perceptions of their own academic abilities (academic self‐concept). Academic self‐concept was found to be highly gendered, even controlling for prior test scores. Boys had higher self‐concepts in mathematics and science, and girls in English. Single‐sex schooling reduced the gender gap in self‐concept, while selective schooling was linked to lower academic self‐concept overall.

Acknowledgements

This work is part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded project RES‐000‐22‐1085, and I would like to thank my colleagues on this project, Diana Leonard and Heather Joshi. Thanks are also due to Ingrid Schoon, Jane Elliott and the participants at a Bedford Group seminar for their comments on an earlier version of this article. Thanks also to three anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

Notes

1. Ordinal regression was found to be inappropriate in this instance, as the assumption of parallel lines was invalid. The test of parallel lines tests the assumption that the slope coefficients are the same across response categories.