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Single-Sex Schools Don’t Work AND They Make Kids Sexist
Study finds single-sex classrooms don't achieve better academic outcomes. But they do make you sexist.
In a desperate effort to raise test scores and improve education, some schools serving at-risk kids decided to segregate classes between the sexes. Some defended this action, saying boys and girls learn differently and that teachers could be more in your face with the boys classes and more talkative and less competitive in the girls.
But there’s actually no proof that single-sex education is more conducive to learning. And a new study even found that it makes kids sexist.
Although a lot of single-sex schools are notorious for giving their students a great education, a new study published in the journal, Science, concluded that this stellar student performance wasn’t achieved by segregating the sexes. In fact, the Science study found, earlier research touting the benefits of single-sex education didn’t adequately account for different socio-economic differences. So high-achieving single-sex schools in wealthier areas — populated by students who would have done well in traditional schools — made the enterprise of dividing the boys and girls appear to have a greater impact on student performance than it actually did.
Which is not to say single-sex schools achieve worse outcomes — there’s not evidence that they do. However, the international study did find single-sex schools and classes had a detrimental effect on the students by reinforcing gender stereotypes.
Here’s what the Telegraph reported about the study:
The authors of the study wrote: “The strongest argument against single sex education is that it reduces boys’ and girls’ opportunities to work together in a supervised, purposeful environment.”
Boys who spend more time in each other’s company are more likely to become aggressive and develop behavioural problems, while isolating girls can lead them to accept gender stereotypes, they said.
Research conducted last year showed that after two weeks of teachers lining children up by gender and asking them to post their work on different bulletin boards in the classroom, boys and girls began to have more stereotyped attitudes towards one another and play less with pupils of the opposite sex.
Related posts:
Girls improve learning for both sexes
Single-sex preschool (got your reinforced stereotypes right here!)
Do your kids attend single-sex schools or learn in gender-segregated classrooms? Would you ever consider it?
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6 Comments
Andrea commented on Sep 23 11 at 5:08 pmYeah, either that or it makes boys and girls actually capable of perceiving reality. Boys and girls are different. Men and women are different. Liberal feminist ideology masquerading as education is not going to change that, not in the long term. Nice try though.
Hallie commented on Sep 24 11 at 11:48 am“there’s actually no proof that single-sex education is more conducive to learning.” I find this claim to be extraordinary and surprising. I went to an all-girls high school and rememer watching a presentation from a researcher studying geneder differences in neurological responses to mathematics and science questions using fMRI measurement. I would be very interested to know your resources for this claim.
BlackOrchid commented on Sep 24 11 at 12:02 pmThis study actually makes me HAPPIER my daughter is in a single sex school.
It’s completely insipid.
Alison commented on Sep 26 11 at 1:14 pmThanks for sharing this – very interesting.
michelle commented on Sep 26 11 at 1:49 pmI’m not buying it either Hallie. I recall very similiar data. Given the chance I’ll have my daughter taking all girls science and math classes. There are learning differences.
Anna commented on Oct 05 11 at 7:33 amPossibly removing boys from a classroom actually removes most of the trouble makers, who happen to be boys.
So it isn’t so much that co-ed is better, just that a few trouble makers make learning harder for the rest of the class.
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