Social stratification and out-of-school learning

To study effects of out-of-school learning we use data on boarding home pupils who attended elementary public schools in the 1940's. The out-of-school environment at the boarding homes could be considered being more learner friendly than the home environment on average: the pupils at the boarding homes had daily scheduled time for doing their homework under assistance of a junior school teacher and, in addition, they had access to a small library. The placement at boarding homes was based on the distance to the nearest school and had, thus, no direct connection to pupils' skills which simplifies the empirical analysis based on register data. We find that the more learning friendly environment equalize skills at school leaving age. The effect is larger for kids with low initial ability.