Conditional gender peer effects?

The current empirical literature on peer group effects in schools highlights that credible causal peer effects cannot be estimated unless parental sorting is taken into account. Motivated by a small theoretical literature that discusses resource allocations within schools, the present paper highlights that causal peer effects might be conditional on the learning environment in which they occur. By exploiting a rapid change in the level of special education in the Norwegian elementary school in the period 2007–2009, we present indicative empirical evidence that gender peer effects in the Norwegian elementary school are conditional on the level of special education provided.