An Intersectional Analysis of Gender Peer Effects in Swedish Classrooms

Sammanfattning: In this study, we examine the impact of the proportion of girls among classroom peers on fourth-grade mathematics achievement in Sweden. To allow for the possibility that different groups of students are affected in distinct manners, we separate the effects based on students' gender and whether they are new immigrants. Furthermore, we distinguish the effect unique to students who are at the intersection of these two identities-new immigrant girls. This intersectional approach provides a novel and valuable contribution to the study of peer effects. By using microdata from the international TIMSS study, we are able to compare classrooms within each school, and hence control for systematic between-school variation in students' backgrounds. We find that the positive average effects of a higher share of girls previously found in other countries are not present among Swedish fourth-grade students. New immigrant girls, however, are substantially positively affected, in contrast to new immigrant boys. This suggests that an intersectional approach is essential in order to target the most disadvantaged groups and thereby effectively enhance primary school achievement in mathematics.