Public and Catholic Schooling: The Effects of Gender Context Policy

The relative effectiveness of public and Catholic schools is now a matter of increasing public interest. Previous research has been confined to a strategy that treats all Catholic schools as a single type. This paper compares school effects for three types of schools--single-sex Catholic, mixed-sex Catholic, and mixed-sex public. The argument set forth is that single-sex schools operate with a reduced adolescent subculture and a greater number of successful academic role models, making possible better academic instruction and higher academic standards. Hence, it is proposed that students in single-sex schools will outperform students in mixed-sex schools in academic concerns. The hypothesis is tested using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. On average, Catholic single-sex schools are nearly twice as effective as Catholic mixed-sex schools. The effect of sex per se, however, is different. In vocabulary and reading, females in Catholic single-sex schools outperform females in Catholic mixed-sex schools relative to public school females. Males in Catholic single-sex schools do better than males in Catholic mixed-sex schools in math and ultimately in educational attainment. These results temper earlier reports of a general Catholic school advantage over public schools and suggest the need to halt temporarily the closing of single-sex schools.