学校环境与学生成绩的性别差异

近几十年来，随着女生受教育权利越来越得到重视，男女生在受教育机会方面趋于平等，但学校中却出现了男生平均成绩相比女生普遍偏低的现象，学生学习成绩的性别差异越来越明显。本文采用学校固定效应模型，分析不同的班级环境对学生学习成绩造成的影响及其性别差异。研究结果显示，男生学习成绩落后的现象多存在于学习环境相对较差的学校。进一步加入中间变量，初步探析其形成机制后发现，在较差的学校中，男生容易在同伴群体中形成反学校的认知、态度和行为，女生则较少受到这种影响，因而容易造成学习成绩上的性别差异。

School Environment and Gender Difference in Math Scores: An Empirical Study of Seven Middle Schools in Guangzhou

In recent decades, due to the effectiveness of the “One Child” policy in the cities, and the social campaign to improve the enrollment and reduce the drop out rate of female students especially in the countryside, the gender gap in educational attainment up to the college level has narrowed. While female students are now as likely as male students to finish high school and enter college, they are also leading the male students in academic performance in schools. Different studies from various countries point to the same result across societies including China.Legewie and DiPrete (2012) found that male students in schools with low average SEI (social economic index) families were more likely to be negatively affected by peers’ anti social attitudes than female students, and regard good at study as less masculine, which resulted in male students’ poor academic performances. Female students in similarly disadvantaged schools, however, were less prone to such negative peer pressures.Using data collected from seven middle schools in Guangzhou and the same school fixed effect model employed by Legewie and DiPrete, the paper seeks to understand how school environment affects gender differences in academic performances in different schools in China and how it compares to Legewie and DiPrete’s study of the German case. The pattern of gender differences in academic performances, measured by standardized math tests, is similar to Legewie and DiPrete’s findings that the gaps between average female test scores and average male test scores are larger in socially disadvantaged schools than elite schools. While students from families of different social economic statuses are sorted into different schools of the two tiered (public vs. private schools) and highly differentiated (selective elite schools vs. non elite schools) school system in Chinese cities, the class assignment within schools is supposed to be random. As a matter of fact, most of the classes within the seven schools studies were based on random assignment, only a few classes were based on preferential selections either by test scores or by higher fees. Classes within schools, therefore, can be regarded as naturally formed experimental groups by random assignment. Since school class is the most immediate and salient micro environment for the students, especially in Chinese schools because students mostly stay with the same class throughout the school years, how variations among classes within the same school affect students’ performances provides a way to assess specifically how micro environment in school affects students’ attitude, behavior, and performance.The results show that the gender gap in math test scores is larger in classes whose average father’s educational level is lower. Average father’s educational level of the class is also related to the differences in male and female students’ gender attitudes and learning behavior which are also shown to have significant effects on academic achievement.