Single-Sex Schools: Effective or Exaggerated?

Earlier this month, The Washington Post published an article about single-gender classrooms. At G. James Gholson Middle School in Maryland, lessons are being taught separately to males and females in an effort to facilitate learning. Many advocates for this learning environment argue that it becomes easier for males and females to concentrate if they are not surrounded the opposite gender. Additionally, it’s been argued that girls tend to dumb themselves down around boys, and therefore, separating the genders allows females to thrive at school because those gender stereotypes can be broken down. This all sounds convincing, and it is convincing, until you find out that there is no research to support this claim.

In her book Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps, professor Lise Eliot comments on a number of research studies that have been conducted around the globe on the effectiveness of single-sex schools, and there has been no significant findings to support the claim that these schools are superior to coed schools. What most people are not taking into account is that most of the single-sex schools around the country are also more elite and generally private with more funding. The effectiveness of these schools is not necessarily related to their single-sex structure. In fact, studies have confirmed that differences in performance between single-sex and coed schools disappear when the data is adjusted to account for preexisting differences between the students. Single-sex schools have been found to both be more selective in the students they admit (with most students having higher-educated families) and offer better facilities and resources. Thus, the sex segregation is not the cause for the increase in performance among these students. Furthermore, opponents to single-gender learning argue that this environment does not adequately prepare students for the real, coed world.

However, this does not mean that there isn’t something to be learned from single-gender schools. Focus needs to be put on the aspects of these schools that are, in fact, contributing to an increase in student test scores. We need to change the culture in our schools so that achievement is held in the highest esteem. While single-gender schools may be placing too much emphasis on the wrong thing, they are on the right track in many other aspects. We just need to identify the characteristics that are truly having an effect on student success so that all schools can capitalize on them.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/boys-and-girls-learn-separately-at-prince-georges-school/2014/02/10/8e242ec2-8eac-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html