Single-sex schools, student achievement, and course selection: Evidence from rule-based student assignments in Trinidad and Tobago

Existing studies on single-sex schooling suffer from biases because students who attend single-sex schools differ in unmeasured ways from those who do not. In Trinidad and Tobago, students are assigned to secondary schools based on an algorithm allowing one to address self-selection bias and estimate the causal effect of attending a single-sex school versus a similar coeducational school. While females with strong expressed preferences for single-sex schools have better 10th grade exam performance due to attending single-sex schools between grades 6 and 10, most students perform no better at single-sex schools. Girls at single-sex-schools take fewer sciences courses. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.