Topic of the day: Single-sex schooling
By Morgan on November 29th, 2011
I’m a graduate of public schools, from my pre-K days to my college years, where girls and boys burned things in chemistry labs and ran laps in gym classes, together. So maybe it’s because I didn’t have the option, or maybe it’s thanks to my love of any book set in a boarding school, but I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of single-sex schooling.
A few weeks ago, results from a new study were released, and the headlines contradicted all the good things I’d so often heard (or perhaps assumed) about single-sex schooling. (Note: the creators of the study are also the founders of the American Council for CoEducational Schooling.) Their research asserts that “sex-segregated education is deeply misguided and often justified by weak, cherry-picked or misconstrued scientific claims rather than by valid scientific evidence,” and that it reduces boys’ and girls’ opportunities to work together and reinforces sex stereotypes.
But on the other hand, there is also plenty of research (mostly from the National Association for Single Sex Public Schooling) that says single-sex schooling can break down gender stereotypes, and has particular benefits for girls: they participate more when boys aren’t in the room, and the curriculum changes to include more female historical figures. And studies also suggest that, in particular, boys in younger grades improve their academics when in an all-boys classroom. Another interesting tidbit? A quarter of the female members of Congress and one-third of all female members of Fortune 100 boards graduated from all-women’s colleges. (Source.)
So, with all this in mind, I have always assumed my admiration of single-sex schooling was shared by many others. When the subject came up at a recent OOM meeting, though, reactions were not what I expected.
Of all the OOMers, Dante is the only one who actually went to a single-sex school – and his comments were pretty, well, certain: “It was AWFUL,” he tells me, noting that the culture at his all-boys school was rife with harassment and bullying. Whenever the student body pushed to enroll girls, the “old boys’ club that ran the place” would counter that girls would be a “distraction.”
Many OOMers agreed that school isn’t just about textbook learning – that the social aspects are important, too, and that “confining the school experience to a single gender means that students might lose the opportunity to learn empathy and how to appreciate our differences,” according to Michael. Alex agrees – she says “having appropriate interaction and real-life experiences with the opposite gender is invaluable.” And Lauren concurs: “How can we teach kids to be open-minded, to work with others, to think and argue in different ways if we limit their interactions to a specific group?”
These are all great points, and yet I find myself still leaning towards Team Single-Sex Schooling – especially for girls, who I believe can learn leadership skills and confidence there in a way they struggle with in coed classes. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the topic. Are you pro or anti? Why or why not? What are your own experiences with single-sex schooling?
Posted: November 29th, 2011 under Education. Tags: education, in the news, schools, students.
9 comments
Comments
I went to an all girls school in the UK through 7th grade, when we moved back here. I think through middle school it is terrific for girls. What I see from raising my kids (one of each) as well as my own experience is that middle school is, quite simply hell. It’s a time of tremendous insecurity because of physical and hormonal changes, and being able to do that in an environment where you don’t have guys pinging your bra strap (like I did in 8th grade) but can just focus on yourself and your mind (which has enough going on, thank you very much) is great. Back to co-ed in HS leaves plenty of time for mingling.
Comment on November 29, 2011 at 3:55 pm
I went to an all-girls Catholic high school and absolutely loved it. I would send any (hypothetical) future children I have to single sex schools in a heartbeat. I don’t think that attending a single sex school affected my ability to empathize with the opposite gender and I think it is short-sighted to say that those educated in single gendered schools are restrained in their opportunities to be open-minded and learn teamwork skills. When we are in single sex schools, it is not as if the opposite gender doesn’t exist for us. They are at home, in our neighborhoods, at our workplaces, and everywhere we go. Perhaps if a person were to go through the entirety of their schooling in single sex schools, the situation might be different. However, at least for me, single sex high school was a pleasure. I had male friends from childhood whom I retained as friends during high school and beyond. There was an all-boys Catholic high school around the corner from ours and we rooted for their teams and I made friends with all of my friends’ classmates from their feeder grade schools.
Perhaps Catholic schools are an outlier to the overall question. Most, if not all of our grade schools are combined while we have many single-sex high schools. None of my friends regret our high school experience. Being at a school with just females really took a distraction out of the equation and put the concentration on education. I don’t know anyone who is maladjusted because of their single sex high school experience.
Comment on November 29, 2011 at 4:12 pm
I’m really intrigued by that compromise — coed for a elementary, single for middle school, coed for high school. (And I totally agree that middle school is typically an awful time for most kids. Ugh, memories…)
Thanks, Sarah!
Comment on November 29, 2011 at 5:35 pm
I was just talking about this with a friend over lunch – we met at an all-girls boarding school (Emma Willard). We agreed that our teen years were not our “golden years”, it was not the school’s fault. We were *teenage girls*, angst is implied. Removing boys from the equation, allowing us to grow intellectually and develop as leaders without that stressor. So I’m 100% in favor of single sex education for girls. For boys? I’ve heard too many stories about harassment and bullying, so no, not so much.
Comment on November 29, 2011 at 8:01 pm
I can’t speak to the single-sex environment K-12. But having spent 4 years at one of the few remaining all-male liberal arts colleges that is neither a seminary nor associated with an adjacent all-female school, I will say that from experience I agree with the oft-proffered argument of ‘distraction’ between the sexes as a true advantage in a post pubescent all-male environment. One can concentrate on academics during the week without primping & preening thereby reserving courtship for road trip weekends.
Comment on November 29, 2011 at 11:03 pm
I went to an all-girls high school and believe it was crucial to my success in engineering later on. I developed a confidence I would probably not have had in the presence of boys, that served me well in college and the business world. Teenagers will find plenty of chances to interact with the opposite sex, but some separation in the classroom is very beneficial in my eyes. Has anyone looked at keeping schools co-ed but just separating classrooms?
Comment on November 30, 2011 at 1:40 pm
I went to an all-girls boarding school in New England and it was a great experience overall. When I got to college, I began to notice that in my first semester classes, the only girls who spoke up had gone to all-girls high schools. That is why the statistic about the highest achieving women in politics and business doesn’t surprise me. The socializing comment is fair, but I think it is outweighed by the benefits of an all-girls education.
Comment on November 30, 2011 at 2:23 pm
I currently teach in a private school that has gender-divided English and Math classes and 5th-8th grade (the school is k-12) and all other courses are co-ed. I am teaching English, and thus I have gender divided classes. Coming from another school where I taught in a co-ed setting. I have to say that I like the change, but I also like that I get to see both sides of the gender spectrum and outside of my classroom I get to see them together. While this is my first year in this setting, the school, it seems has had a positive experience in the years it has employed this system of organization.
Comment on December 3, 2011 at 11:24 pm
In the above comment, I meant “in” 5th-8th grade, not “and.”
Comment on December 3, 2011 at 11:26 pm
