How Schools Can Narrow the Gender and Genetic Gaps in Educational Achievement

Boys have received lower average grades than girls for over a century, with likely implications for their future educational opportunities, mental health, and mortality. However, there are also considerable achievement differences within both gender groups, largely owing to individual differences in cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Identifying mechanisms within schools that shape educational gaps related to both gender and skills could reveal approaches to support all struggling students, regardless of gender. We computed polygenic indices for cognitive and non-cognitive skills for a sample of 36,800 Norwegian students across 1,068 lower secondary schools, leveraging genetic variation as an exogenous source of student skills through a within-family design. By interacting the polygenic indices with gender and a wide range of population-representative school environments, we find that some school environments provide additional benefits for students with lower non-cognitive predispositions. This compensatory support was especially pronounced for boys. Additionally, while both gender groups benefited from the same school environments, effects were generally larger for boys. Taken together, our results indicate that schools may reduce educational achievement differences within and across gender groups by reducing the influence of non-cognitive predispositions on achievement.