Single Sex School
Debates about single-sex and co-educational schools have a long history. The dis¬putes over co-educational schooling continue today and are similar around the world. In America, millions of dollars have been authorized for the creation of single-sex schools and classes as part of wanting to raise academic standards in Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ education plan (Zittleman and Sadker 60). This paper, by referring to a number of scholars studying the subject of single sex schools, critically analyzes this issue as it pertains to both the history and development of modern educational practices.
Although there are many factors involved, the arguments can be placed into two broad categories. In one, the main emphasis is on the cognitive aspects of schooling. This debate has centered mainly on how academically successful the two types of school groupings have been, with writers focusing to differing degrees on social factors. In the second category, the main emphasis is on equity issues. These two are not mutually exclusive, and both can be seen as important. Supporters of both single-sex and co-educational schooling have used both emphases to advance their case.
It has been claimed that the single-sex environment helps girls achieve more academically and that subject choices are less divided along gender lines, with girls tending to take so-called masculine subjects like mathematics and science more readily than in a mixed environment. In fact, Gurian, Henley, and Trueman support such notion by stating that “Boys and girls overlap a great deal in how their brains and hormones handle attachment stress. Yet, there are also differences, especially clear in the early years” (77). In other words, brain-based peculiarities along with social conditions create a number of disadvantages for both girls and boys in the mixed schools.
Other researchers have argued that the type of subject teaching, and what counts as knowledge, may be affecting subject choices. Some of the explanations for such situation is that pupils work harder when they are not distracted by the other sex, feel more comfortable in the single-sex situation, subjects are associated with particular gender identities, and that boys and girls have brain differences and different learning stylus (Sax 22). As a result, it is argued that it is possible to adapt the classroom to meet the different perceived needs of boys and girls (Bleach 1998).
Yet some argue that it is not clear if single-sex schools do produce better academic results for girls. Reviews of the research have shown that it produces contradictory results, at least in part because of the samples that have been used (Sax 27).
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