Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Contini, Dalit  
Author-Email: dalit.contini@unito.it
Author-Name: Di Tommaso, Maria Laura 
Author-Email: marialaura.ditommaso@unito.it
Author-Name: Maccagnan, Anna 
Author-Email: anna.maccagnan@unito.it 
Author-Name: Mendolia, Silvia 
Author-Email: silvia.mendolia@unito.it
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Turin
Author-Workplace-Homepage: http://www.est.unito.it/
Title: Gender gap in high school choices: do achievements and peers play a role?
Abstract: This paper focuses on the gendered choice of high school in the Italian context, where
students select the type and subject-focus of their schools when they are around 13 years old
(at a younger age than in most of the rest of the developed world). We explore the role of
own ability and past performance in mathematics and Italian, the role of own position in the
class ranking and the overall performance of girls and boys in the class. The main results
show that individual ability by subject is an important determinant of high school choice and
these effects vary with gender. Further, relative performance by subject also matter in
educational choices, and the effects are similar for boys and girls. Lastly, we show that the
gender gap in the choice of high school does not change once we have taken into
consideration all these various mechanisms, and therefore the differences in choices are
mostly unexplained, and likely to be related to cultural and social stereotypes, gender norms,
and different perceptions of own abilities. These results call for policies that address
stereotypes and prejudices.
Length: pages 51
Creation-Date: 2023-01
File-URL: https://www.est.unito.it/do/home.pl/Download?doc=/allegati/wp2023dip/wp_01_2023.pdf
File-Format: Application/PDF
Handle: RePEc:uto:dipeco:202301