Are single-sex schools more effective than the coed ones? The effect of single-sex schooling on achievement among female adolescents in Catholic schools

ABSTRACT

This study inquired into the effect of single-sex schooling on achievement of female adolescents. It used national examination data of 4,787 Polish female students (10 cohorts) attending single-sex and co-educational Catholic schools. We tested two sets of partially contradictory predictions derived from two different theoretical models explaining how and why achievement of female students in the two types of school may differ. The results of cross-classified random-effects regression models showed that after controlling for initial student and school differences female adolescents attending all-girls schools scored higher on the lower-secondary school exam in science and the humanities in comparison to those who attended co-educational schools. However, the difference was statistically significant only for science. The results were fully consistent with neither of the two adopted theoretical models, although provided more support for the one drawing upon peer effects. Although the effect of 17% of the exam scores standard deviation could be considered small, it appeared in the results of a high-stakes exam. Since the examination results were the main criterion for admission to the next-stage school, attending an all-girls school might significantly affect future educational career and job opportunities of young women.

KEYWORDS:

• academic achievement
• same-sex education
• religious education
• junior high school students
• female adolescents

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mateusz Żółtak and Tomasz Żółtak for their help in gaining access to data used in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre under Grant number 2014/13/N/HS6/02974. The article uses data collected and processed with support from the European Social Fund under Grant number UDA-POKL.03.02.00-00-001/13-00.

Notes on contributors

Maciej Koniewski

Maciej Koniewski is an assistant professor at the Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Among his research topics are educational measurement, school effectiveness and public policy.

Anna Hawrot

Anna Hawrot is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories in Bamberg, Germany. Her research interests include the role of various school and family factors for cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes.