Girl Power? An analysis of peer effects using exogenous changes in the gender make-up of the peer group.

The effect of a child’s peers has long been regarded as an important factor in affecting their educational outcomes. However, these effects are often difficult to estimate. I use exogenous changes in the proportion of girls within English school cohorts to estimate the effect of a more female peer group, estimated in all schools, and in a subset of schools that only include one classroom per academic year. I find significant negative effects of a more female peer group on boys’ outcomes in English. In maths and science, all pupils benefit from a more female peer group up until age 11.peer groups, education

Peer effects in English Primary schools: An IV estimation on the effect of a more able peer group on age 11 examination results

The magnitude and characteristics of the effect of a child’s peers on their outcomes has long interested researchers and policy makers. In this paper, I take advantage of the correlation between the average outcomes a child’s peer group attains with the distribution of ages within the cohort to construct an instrument for the ability of the peer group in order to estimate the peers effects on children’s outcomes at age 11. IV results suggest there is a significant positive effect of a more able peer group. Furthermore, the results suggest that there is more benefit for children who are close to the ability of the peer group than those whose ability is not close.peer groups, primary education

Student effort and educational attainment: Using the England football team to identify the education production function.

We use a sharp, exogenous and repeated change in the value of leisure to identify the impact of student effort on educational achievement. The treatment arises from the partial overlap of the world’s major international football tournaments with the exam period in England. Our data enable a clean difference-in-difference design. Performance is measured using the high-stakes tests that all students take at the end of compulsory schooling. We find a strongly significant effect: the average impact of a fall in effort is 0.12 SDs of student performance, significantly larger for male and disadvantaged students, as high as many educational policies.student effort, educational achievement, schools

Evidence of Peer Effects in English Schools

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The Effects of Absorbing Materials on the Homogeneity of Composite Heating by Microwave Radiation

When cured in a microwave, flat thin composite panels can experience even heat distribution throughout the laminate. However, as load and geometric complexity increase, the electromagnetic field and resulting heat distribution is altered, making it difficult to cure the composite homogeneously. Materials that absorb and/or reflect incident electromagnetic radiation have the potential to influence how the field behaves, and therefore to tailor and improve the uniformity of heat distribution. In this study, an absorber was applied to a composite with non-uniform geometry to increase heating in the location which had previously been the coldest position, transforming it into the hottest. Although this result overshot the desired outcome of temperature uniformity, it shows the potential of absorbing materials to radically change the temperature distribution, demonstrating that with better regulation of the absorbing effect, a uniform temperature distribution is possible even in non-uniform composite geometries

Prenatal THC Exposure Induces Sex-Dependent Neuropsychiatric Endophenotypes in Offspring and Long-Term Disruptions in Fatty-Acid Signaling Pathways Directly in the Mesolimbic Circuitry

Despite increased prevalence of maternal cannabis use, little is understood regarding potential long-term effects of prenatal cannabis exposure (PCE) on neurodevelopmental outcomes. While neurodevelopmental cannabis exposure increases the risk of developing affective/mood disorders in adulthood, the precise neuro-pathophysiological mechanisms in male and female offspring are largely unknown. Given the interconnectivity of the endocannabinoid (ECb) system and the brain’s fatty acid pathways, we hypothesized that prenatal exposure to ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) may dysregulate fetal neurodevelopment through alterations of fatty-acid dependent synaptic and neuronal function in the mesolimbic system. To investigate this, pregnant Wistar rats were exposed to vehicle or THC (3 mg/kg) from gestational day (GD)7 until GD22. Anxiety-like, depres-sive-like, and reward-seeking behavior, electrophysiology, and molecular assays were performed on adult male/female offspring. Imaging of fatty acids using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI IMS) was performed at prepubescence and adulthood. We report that PCE induces be-havioral, neuronal, and molecular alterations in the mesolimbic system in male and female offspring, resem-bling neuropsychiatric endophenotypes. Additionally, PCE resulted in profound dysregulation of critical fatty acid pathways in the developing brain lipidome. Female progeny exhibited significant alterations to fatty acid levels at prepubescence but recovered from these deficits by early adulthood. In contrast, males exhibited persistent fatty acid deficits into adulthood. Moreover, both sexes maintained enduring abnormalities in gluta-matergic/GABAergic function in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). These findings identify several novel long-term risks of maternal cannabis use and demonstrate for the first time, sex-related effects of maternal cannabinoid exposure directly in the developing neural lipidome