Science Concepts Pre–Post Assessment (Williams et al., 2012)
Category: Student Learning
Gender roles are shaped within families, but whether family gender-role arrangements extend beyond households and influence other children remains unclear. This paper studies whether exposure to peers from father-dominant caregiving households affects students’ gender beliefs and educational outcomes. Using nationally representative data from Chinese middle schools and exploiting quasi-random classroom assignment, I show that exposure to a higher share of peers from households in which fathers provide most parental caregiving reduces girls’ likelihood of believing that boys are better than girls at mathematics. This exposure also increases girls’ mathematics self-beliefs and improves their subsequent mathematics achievement. The effects are concentrated among girls and are accompanied by more positive reported classroom experiences. These findings provide first causal evidence that the division of caregiving within peers’ families can shape girls’ gender beliefs and educational outcomes.
Keywords
gender norms, belief formation, peer effects, human capital
Education level
Topics
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/44dz-r119
