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The mixed-sex environment has another positive aspect which is it prepares both sex for a future. To be more specific, the mixed-sex environment can assist both sexes to be ready for the working environment. As a result the mixed education both genders are hopefully able to work with each other confidently and successfully.

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The Positives and Negatives Aspects of Single-Sex... | Bartleby

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Free Essay: Probably the single sex and mixed schools' issue has been discussed and debated in the UK more than in any country in the world. In the last four...

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One of the most important reasons is that girls and boys have equal opportunities and have access to the same tutors, same educational 🤬 and same facilities. Furthermore, comprehensive schools can provide excellent welfare, health care and extensive resources due to its budget more than separate schools.

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The Positives and Negatives Aspects of Single-Sex... | Bartleby

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Free Essay: Probably the single sex and mixed schools' issue has been discussed and debated in the UK more than in any country in the world. In the last four...

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The second sort of education is co-education or mixed-sex schooling. This type has some merits, which may not be found in single-sex education. First of all, the majority of scientific experts have mentioned that mixed-sex schooling can be called fair education for several reasons.

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The Positives and Negatives Aspects of Single-Sex... | Bartleby

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Free Essay: Probably the single sex and mixed schools' issue has been discussed and debated in the UK more than in any country in the world. In the last four...

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In detail , boys and girls have been taught the essential communication skills and thus, they will be able to communicate some effective opinions, demonstrate politely and argue alternative viewpoint to issue. Some reports suggest that the girls have a ‘civilising’ effect on the boys, so that in comprehensive schools girls influence boys’ behaviour and hence, boys have become less aggressive in dialogue sessions.
Despite the many benefits aspects of both education system (single-sex or mixed-sex) there can be

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The Positives and Negatives Aspects of Single-Sex... | Bartleby

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Free Essay: Probably the single sex and mixed schools' issue has been discussed and debated in the UK more than in any country in the world. In the last four...

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When play got under way, these girls were competitors: they would jump for the ball, grab it, sometimes even wrestling the ball away from another girl. The girls who were most engaged were, not surprisingly, the highest-skilled girls at playing the game. Other girls were not particularly excited about the game and certainly were not jumping and grabbing for the ball; again, not surprisingly, these girls were less skilled. Weisfeld and colleagues found the same variation in engagement and skill among the Native American girls in New Mexico. When boys were brought into the gym so that there were an equal number of girls and boys playing, the picture changed. New Mexico Hopi girls still participated in the game, but the high-skill girls no longer demonstrated their skill.

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An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." This section has received extensive coverage in national and international media. It was the basis for an article last Friday in the Washington Post, " Single-sex education may do more harm than good"; " Children at single-sex schools more likely to be sexist" ( The Daily Telegraph); " Single-sex schools make students sexist" ( The Daily Beast) and so forth. But ALL the studies cited in the SCIENCE article regarding "negative impacts" with regard to sexism were in fact studies involving a small number of PRE-SCHOOL students attending a COED pre-kindergarten, all of which were authored or co-authored by one or more of the authors of the SCIENCE paper. The files are their references #24 ( Martin & Halverson 1981), #25 (), #27 ( Martin & Fabes 2001) and #28 ( Fabes & Martin 1997).

We're talking about that section of the article in Science under the heading, "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." The authors begin this section by acknowledging that "some proponents of SS [single-sex] education claim it is well suited to countering sexism. . ." They then conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings because the contrast between the segregated classroom and the mixed-sex structure of the surrounding world provides evidence to children that sex is a core human characteristic . . ."

Perhaps Halpern, Eliot, Bigler et al. believe that if we didn't have any single-sex classrooms, then children would have no evidence that "sex is a core human characteristic." More importantly, these authors provide no evidence for their conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings." In fact, this conjecture has been tested, and proven false, in multiple studies, none of which is cited by Halpern et al. One of the most compelling of these papers is the study published by Ursula Kessels and Bettina Hannover, in their paper entitled "When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender-related self-knowledge in single-sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students' physics-related self-concept of ability." These investigators randomly assigned 401 8th-grade girls from coed schools either to study science in an all-girls classroom or in a coed classroom. They found that girls in the all-girls classroom were less aware of "being a girl" and less aware of gender stereotypes regarding science, compared to girls who were randomly assigned to the coed classroom. This study directly refutes the conjecture of Halpern et al., yet they never mention it. (We will consider another similar study, by Carol Cronin Weisfeld, in a moment.)

The authors then solemnly state, "Research has demonstrated that, when environments label individuals and segregate along some characteristic (e.g. gender, eye color, or randomly assigned t-shirt groups), children infer that the groups differ in important ways." Well, certainly. This is a robust finding which I discuss at length in my book Girls on the Edge, chapter 6, especially pages 174 - 180. I and others refer to this effect as "group contrast effects" although it goes by various names. People, including children, do tend to exaggerate the differences between groups. In their article published last week in Science, Dr. Halpern and her colleagues then provide another conjecture (bottom of the 1st column, p. 1707): ". . .it is likely that these effects would be even more powerful when sex is used to divide children into entirely separate classrooms or schools rather than merely into separate lines to go to lunch." What evidence do the authors provide in support of this conjecture? Zero. Zilch. Nada. They got nothing. More troubling, they show no awareness that this conjecture has been tested and found to be false. For example, consider the classic study by Carol Cronin Weisfeld and colleagues, who videotaped girls in Chicago playing dodgeball, first girls against girls, then girls and boys together. Then they did the same thing with Native American children on a Hopi reservation in New Mexico. When Chicago girls played against other Chicago girls, there was lots of variation in the style and quality of play. Some of the girls were really serious about the game: as soon as play began, those girls would adopt what coaches call the "athletic stance," knees bent, arms flexed, eyes focused, ready to jump for the ball. When play got under way, these girls were competitors: they would jump for the ball, grab it, sometimes even wrestling the ball away from another girl. The girls who were most engaged were, not surprisingly, the highest-skilled girls at playing the game. Other girls were not particularly excited about the game and certainly were not jumping and grabbing for the ball; again, not surprisingly, these girls were less skilled. Weisfeld and colleagues found the same variation in engagement and skill among the Native American girls in New Mexico. When boys were brought into the gym so that there were an equal number of girls and boys playing, the picture changed. New Mexico Hopi girls still participated in the game, but the high-skill girls no longer demonstrated their skill. They didn't want to fight the boys for the ball. When the boys were playing, the high-skill Hopi girls looked very much like the low-skill girls. Most of the high-skill Chicago girls didn't even hang around for the game when boys were playing. Instead, they left the playing area altogether and went off in little groups to dance with one another or to snack on potato chips. Most of these kids, girls and boys, were 12 years old. In this study, the average girl in Chicago and in New Mexico was bigger and taller than the average boy in Chicago and in New Mexico, respectively. Nevertheless, the high-skill girls seemed to lose much of their enthusiasm for the game when boys were playing. This study, and others like it, demonstrate that group contrast effects are most pronounced when girls and boys are TOGETHER. When they are separated, girls are more free to explore different ways of being, and likewise boys. The best way to get boys to play the flute is to create an all-boys band (see the closing chapter of my book Why Gender Matters for an example from Calgary Alberta in this regard). When girls and boys are together, boys are more likely to say, "Flutes are for girls." Likewise for cooking. Likewise for dance.

What's stunning is that Dr. Halpern - a former president of the APA - and her colleagues, all tenured professors, show no awareness of the extensive literature on this topic. On this topic, in this section, they cite only papers written by their co-authors. They literally seem not to have read anything which they themselves did not publish.

What evidence do the authors cite? In the next paragraph, they claim that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." Note first of all how they have changed the topic. The authors have slipped in the assumption that a single-sex classroom is equivalent to making children's sex salient. In fact, the empirical evidence - and my own first-hand observations at more than 300 schools - suggests just the opposite. At coed schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at coed schools is almost always a BOY. At girls' schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at a girls' school is always a GIRL. There is a great deal of evidence (e.g. Kessels and Hannover, cited above) that one's own biological sex is less salient when everybody in the classroom is a girl, then when girls and boys are together and everybody wonders whether Emily likes Justin.But let's proceed with the authors' assertion that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." What evidence do they provide in support of this assertion? A study by Lacy Hilliard and Lynn Liben (one of the paper's co-authors) of 57 four-year-olds! Hilliard and Liben found that when teachers emphasized that boys are boys and girls are girls, in this COED setting, that all sorts of bad things happened. Well, OK. And explain to me how this is relevant to an ALL-GIRLS classroom? It's not.

The authors then assert that "boys who spend more time with other boys become increasingly aggressive." That's a very broad and general statement. What evidence do they provide in support of this extraordinary statement? Just one study, written by two of the paper's co-authors, Carol Martin and Richard Fabes ( Martin Fabes 2001). And who were the subjects in this study? The subjects were 61 four-year-olds, 28 boys and 33 girls. How large was this effect? The authors never state the size of the effect in the original study (see p. 439), except that it was "significant" at the p=0.05 level.

Let's just state the syllogism here:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore boys' elementary schools, boys' middle schools and boys' high schools are a bad idea for all boys everywhere.

Huh? I think it would be more reasonable to conclude:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore you should be cautious about enrolling your son in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona.

This article has been widely reported in media such as The New York Times and the Washington Post as the authoritative and indisputable last word documenting the negative effects of single-sex education. But the bias in this article really makes Rush Limbaugh look like a model of impartiality and restraint.

The authors of the article in Science continue this paragraph with the assertion that "girls who spend more time with other girls become more sex-typed" - and what's the sole citation provided in support of this claim? Once again, Martin & Fabes, 2001. So: if it's true of 33 "mostly Caucasian" girls from "middle- to upper-middle class families, with 70% of the children living in two- parent households", attending preschool, then it must be true of all girls everywhere, at all grade levels. No cautions, no disclaimers.

Let it not be said that the authors of the article for Science ignore only the work of other authors. They ignore their own studies, if their own studies don't fit their preconceived ideas in this article. For example, Fabes, Martin, Hanish et al. 2003 - a paper written by three of the co-authors of last week's article for Science - documented some unexpected BENEFICIAL effects of same-sex play for both girls and boys. But the authors of last week's paper for Science never mention the paper, even though they wrote it. Or at least three of them did.

Science magazine is certainly one of the most prestigious scholarly journals in the world. The fact that Science would publish such an article is just weird, and troubling. Just as troubling is the fact that so many leading newspapers such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe and The Washington Post would accept such claims without checking the evidence.

Speaking of evidence: There's also no evidence in the article for Science that any of the eight authors have ever actually visited a single-sex school. So I invited all eight authors to attend the 7th International Conference of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, a conference which I am hosting, Saturday and Sunday October 8 and 9, in Orlando, Florida. There's still time to register. We will have 91 different presenters giving 58 different presentations. It will be a great opportunity for these authors to meet teachers and administrators who have seen first-hand how effective this format can be, for some students.

There's much more wrong with this article besides the fact that they based conclusions about the purported "harm" of single-sex education entirely on research conducted in coed preschools to big conclusions. You will find more on this point at my personal web site, www.leonardsax.com/Science.htm.

Which leads to the question: why are these authors, all tenured professors, so anxious to attack single-sex schools, regardless of - or even in spite of - the evidence?

But that's a topic for another day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Are Single-Sex Schools Actually DANGEROUS?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender."

# data[].attributes.body
who videotaped girls in Chicago playing dodgeball, first girls against girls, then girls and boys together. Then they did the same thing with Native American children on a Hopi reservation in New Mexico. When Chicago girls played against other Chicago girls, there was lots of variation in the style and quality of play. Some of the girls were really serious about the game: as soon as play began, those girls would adopt what coaches call the "athletic stance," knees bent, arms flexed, eyes focused, ready to jump for the ball.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." This section has received extensive coverage in national and international media. It was the basis for an article last Friday in the Washington Post, " Single-sex education may do more harm than good"; " Children at single-sex schools more likely to be sexist" ( The Daily Telegraph); " Single-sex schools make students sexist" ( The Daily Beast) and so forth. But ALL the studies cited in the SCIENCE article regarding "negative impacts" with regard to sexism were in fact studies involving a small number of PRE-SCHOOL students attending a COED pre-kindergarten, all of which were authored or co-authored by one or more of the authors of the SCIENCE paper. The files are their references #24 ( Martin & Halverson 1981), #25 (), #27 ( Martin & Fabes 2001) and #28 ( Fabes & Martin 1997).

We're talking about that section of the article in Science under the heading, "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." The authors begin this section by acknowledging that "some proponents of SS [single-sex] education claim it is well suited to countering sexism. . ." They then conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings because the contrast between the segregated classroom and the mixed-sex structure of the surrounding world provides evidence to children that sex is a core human characteristic . . ."

Perhaps Halpern, Eliot, Bigler et al. believe that if we didn't have any single-sex classrooms, then children would have no evidence that "sex is a core human characteristic." More importantly, these authors provide no evidence for their conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings." In fact, this conjecture has been tested, and proven false, in multiple studies, none of which is cited by Halpern et al. One of the most compelling of these papers is the study published by Ursula Kessels and Bettina Hannover, in their paper entitled "When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender-related self-knowledge in single-sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students' physics-related self-concept of ability." These investigators randomly assigned 401 8th-grade girls from coed schools either to study science in an all-girls classroom or in a coed classroom. They found that girls in the all-girls classroom were less aware of "being a girl" and less aware of gender stereotypes regarding science, compared to girls who were randomly assigned to the coed classroom. This study directly refutes the conjecture of Halpern et al., yet they never mention it. (We will consider another similar study, by Carol Cronin Weisfeld, in a moment.)

The authors then solemnly state, "Research has demonstrated that, when environments label individuals and segregate along some characteristic (e.g. gender, eye color, or randomly assigned t-shirt groups), children infer that the groups differ in important ways." Well, certainly. This is a robust finding which I discuss at length in my book Girls on the Edge, chapter 6, especially pages 174 - 180. I and others refer to this effect as "group contrast effects" although it goes by various names. People, including children, do tend to exaggerate the differences between groups. In their article published last week in Science, Dr. Halpern and her colleagues then provide another conjecture (bottom of the 1st column, p. 1707): ". . .it is likely that these effects would be even more powerful when sex is used to divide children into entirely separate classrooms or schools rather than merely into separate lines to go to lunch." What evidence do the authors provide in support of this conjecture? Zero. Zilch. Nada. They got nothing. More troubling, they show no awareness that this conjecture has been tested and found to be false. For example, consider the classic study by Carol Cronin Weisfeld and colleagues, who videotaped girls in Chicago playing dodgeball, first girls against girls, then girls and boys together. Then they did the same thing with Native American children on a Hopi reservation in New Mexico. When Chicago girls played against other Chicago girls, there was lots of variation in the style and quality of play. Some of the girls were really serious about the game: as soon as play began, those girls would adopt what coaches call the "athletic stance," knees bent, arms flexed, eyes focused, ready to jump for the ball. When play got under way, these girls were competitors: they would jump for the ball, grab it, sometimes even wrestling the ball away from another girl. The girls who were most engaged were, not surprisingly, the highest-skilled girls at playing the game. Other girls were not particularly excited about the game and certainly were not jumping and grabbing for the ball; again, not surprisingly, these girls were less skilled. Weisfeld and colleagues found the same variation in engagement and skill among the Native American girls in New Mexico. When boys were brought into the gym so that there were an equal number of girls and boys playing, the picture changed. New Mexico Hopi girls still participated in the game, but the high-skill girls no longer demonstrated their skill. They didn't want to fight the boys for the ball. When the boys were playing, the high-skill Hopi girls looked very much like the low-skill girls. Most of the high-skill Chicago girls didn't even hang around for the game when boys were playing. Instead, they left the playing area altogether and went off in little groups to dance with one another or to snack on potato chips. Most of these kids, girls and boys, were 12 years old. In this study, the average girl in Chicago and in New Mexico was bigger and taller than the average boy in Chicago and in New Mexico, respectively. Nevertheless, the high-skill girls seemed to lose much of their enthusiasm for the game when boys were playing. This study, and others like it, demonstrate that group contrast effects are most pronounced when girls and boys are TOGETHER. When they are separated, girls are more free to explore different ways of being, and likewise boys. The best way to get boys to play the flute is to create an all-boys band (see the closing chapter of my book Why Gender Matters for an example from Calgary Alberta in this regard). When girls and boys are together, boys are more likely to say, "Flutes are for girls." Likewise for cooking. Likewise for dance.

What's stunning is that Dr. Halpern - a former president of the APA - and her colleagues, all tenured professors, show no awareness of the extensive literature on this topic. On this topic, in this section, they cite only papers written by their co-authors. They literally seem not to have read anything which they themselves did not publish.

What evidence do the authors cite? In the next paragraph, they claim that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." Note first of all how they have changed the topic. The authors have slipped in the assumption that a single-sex classroom is equivalent to making children's sex salient. In fact, the empirical evidence - and my own first-hand observations at more than 300 schools - suggests just the opposite. At coed schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at coed schools is almost always a BOY. At girls' schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at a girls' school is always a GIRL. There is a great deal of evidence (e.g. Kessels and Hannover, cited above) that one's own biological sex is less salient when everybody in the classroom is a girl, then when girls and boys are together and everybody wonders whether Emily likes Justin.But let's proceed with the authors' assertion that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." What evidence do they provide in support of this assertion? A study by Lacy Hilliard and Lynn Liben (one of the paper's co-authors) of 57 four-year-olds! Hilliard and Liben found that when teachers emphasized that boys are boys and girls are girls, in this COED setting, that all sorts of bad things happened. Well, OK. And explain to me how this is relevant to an ALL-GIRLS classroom? It's not.

The authors then assert that "boys who spend more time with other boys become increasingly aggressive." That's a very broad and general statement. What evidence do they provide in support of this extraordinary statement? Just one study, written by two of the paper's co-authors, Carol Martin and Richard Fabes ( Martin Fabes 2001). And who were the subjects in this study? The subjects were 61 four-year-olds, 28 boys and 33 girls. How large was this effect? The authors never state the size of the effect in the original study (see p. 439), except that it was "significant" at the p=0.05 level.

Let's just state the syllogism here:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore boys' elementary schools, boys' middle schools and boys' high schools are a bad idea for all boys everywhere.

Huh? I think it would be more reasonable to conclude:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore you should be cautious about enrolling your son in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona.

This article has been widely reported in media such as The New York Times and the Washington Post as the authoritative and indisputable last word documenting the negative effects of single-sex education. But the bias in this article really makes Rush Limbaugh look like a model of impartiality and restraint.

The authors of the article in Science continue this paragraph with the assertion that "girls who spend more time with other girls become more sex-typed" - and what's the sole citation provided in support of this claim? Once again, Martin & Fabes, 2001. So: if it's true of 33 "mostly Caucasian" girls from "middle- to upper-middle class families, with 70% of the children living in two- parent households", attending preschool, then it must be true of all girls everywhere, at all grade levels. No cautions, no disclaimers.

Let it not be said that the authors of the article for Science ignore only the work of other authors. They ignore their own studies, if their own studies don't fit their preconceived ideas in this article. For example, Fabes, Martin, Hanish et al. 2003 - a paper written by three of the co-authors of last week's article for Science - documented some unexpected BENEFICIAL effects of same-sex play for both girls and boys. But the authors of last week's paper for Science never mention the paper, even though they wrote it. Or at least three of them did.

Science magazine is certainly one of the most prestigious scholarly journals in the world. The fact that Science would publish such an article is just weird, and troubling. Just as troubling is the fact that so many leading newspapers such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe and The Washington Post would accept such claims without checking the evidence.

Speaking of evidence: There's also no evidence in the article for Science that any of the eight authors have ever actually visited a single-sex school. So I invited all eight authors to attend the 7th International Conference of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, a conference which I am hosting, Saturday and Sunday October 8 and 9, in Orlando, Florida. There's still time to register. We will have 91 different presenters giving 58 different presentations. It will be a great opportunity for these authors to meet teachers and administrators who have seen first-hand how effective this format can be, for some students.

There's much more wrong with this article besides the fact that they based conclusions about the purported "harm" of single-sex education entirely on research conducted in coed preschools to big conclusions. You will find more on this point at my personal web site, www.leonardsax.com/Science.htm.

Which leads to the question: why are these authors, all tenured professors, so anxious to attack single-sex schools, regardless of - or even in spite of - the evidence?

But that's a topic for another day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Are Single-Sex Schools Actually DANGEROUS?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender."

# data[].attributes.body
, They didn't want to fight the boys for the ball. When the boys were playing, the high-skill Hopi girls looked very much like the low-skill girls. Most of the high-skill Chicago girls didn't even hang around for the game when boys were playing. Instead, they left the playing area altogether and went off in little groups to dance with one another or to snack on potato chips. Most of these kids, girls and boys, were 12 years old. In this study, the average girl in Chicago and in New Mexico was bigger and taller than the average boy in Chicago and in New Mexico, respectively. Nevertheless, the high-skill girls seemed to lose much of their enthusiasm for the game when boys were playing. This study, and others like it, demonstrate that group contrast effects are most pronounced when girls and boys are TOGETHER. When they are separated, girls are more free to explore different ways of being, and likewise boys. The best way to get boys to play the flute is to create an all-boys band (see the closing chapter of my book Why Gender Matters for an example from Calgary Alberta in this regard). When girls and boys are together, boys are more likely to say, "Flutes are for girls." Likewise for cooking. Likewise for dance.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." This section has received extensive coverage in national and international media. It was the basis for an article last Friday in the Washington Post, " Single-sex education may do more harm than good"; " Children at single-sex schools more likely to be sexist" ( The Daily Telegraph); " Single-sex schools make students sexist" ( The Daily Beast) and so forth. But ALL the studies cited in the SCIENCE article regarding "negative impacts" with regard to sexism were in fact studies involving a small number of PRE-SCHOOL students attending a COED pre-kindergarten, all of which were authored or co-authored by one or more of the authors of the SCIENCE paper. The files are their references #24 ( Martin & Halverson 1981), #25 (), #27 ( Martin & Fabes 2001) and #28 ( Fabes & Martin 1997).

We're talking about that section of the article in Science under the heading, "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." The authors begin this section by acknowledging that "some proponents of SS [single-sex] education claim it is well suited to countering sexism. . ." They then conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings because the contrast between the segregated classroom and the mixed-sex structure of the surrounding world provides evidence to children that sex is a core human characteristic . . ."

Perhaps Halpern, Eliot, Bigler et al. believe that if we didn't have any single-sex classrooms, then children would have no evidence that "sex is a core human characteristic." More importantly, these authors provide no evidence for their conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings." In fact, this conjecture has been tested, and proven false, in multiple studies, none of which is cited by Halpern et al. One of the most compelling of these papers is the study published by Ursula Kessels and Bettina Hannover, in their paper entitled "When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender-related self-knowledge in single-sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students' physics-related self-concept of ability." These investigators randomly assigned 401 8th-grade girls from coed schools either to study science in an all-girls classroom or in a coed classroom. They found that girls in the all-girls classroom were less aware of "being a girl" and less aware of gender stereotypes regarding science, compared to girls who were randomly assigned to the coed classroom. This study directly refutes the conjecture of Halpern et al., yet they never mention it. (We will consider another similar study, by Carol Cronin Weisfeld, in a moment.)

The authors then solemnly state, "Research has demonstrated that, when environments label individuals and segregate along some characteristic (e.g. gender, eye color, or randomly assigned t-shirt groups), children infer that the groups differ in important ways." Well, certainly. This is a robust finding which I discuss at length in my book Girls on the Edge, chapter 6, especially pages 174 - 180. I and others refer to this effect as "group contrast effects" although it goes by various names. People, including children, do tend to exaggerate the differences between groups. In their article published last week in Science, Dr. Halpern and her colleagues then provide another conjecture (bottom of the 1st column, p. 1707): ". . .it is likely that these effects would be even more powerful when sex is used to divide children into entirely separate classrooms or schools rather than merely into separate lines to go to lunch." What evidence do the authors provide in support of this conjecture? Zero. Zilch. Nada. They got nothing. More troubling, they show no awareness that this conjecture has been tested and found to be false. For example, consider the classic study by Carol Cronin Weisfeld and colleagues, who videotaped girls in Chicago playing dodgeball, first girls against girls, then girls and boys together. Then they did the same thing with Native American children on a Hopi reservation in New Mexico. When Chicago girls played against other Chicago girls, there was lots of variation in the style and quality of play. Some of the girls were really serious about the game: as soon as play began, those girls would adopt what coaches call the "athletic stance," knees bent, arms flexed, eyes focused, ready to jump for the ball. When play got under way, these girls were competitors: they would jump for the ball, grab it, sometimes even wrestling the ball away from another girl. The girls who were most engaged were, not surprisingly, the highest-skilled girls at playing the game. Other girls were not particularly excited about the game and certainly were not jumping and grabbing for the ball; again, not surprisingly, these girls were less skilled. Weisfeld and colleagues found the same variation in engagement and skill among the Native American girls in New Mexico. When boys were brought into the gym so that there were an equal number of girls and boys playing, the picture changed. New Mexico Hopi girls still participated in the game, but the high-skill girls no longer demonstrated their skill. They didn't want to fight the boys for the ball. When the boys were playing, the high-skill Hopi girls looked very much like the low-skill girls. Most of the high-skill Chicago girls didn't even hang around for the game when boys were playing. Instead, they left the playing area altogether and went off in little groups to dance with one another or to snack on potato chips. Most of these kids, girls and boys, were 12 years old. In this study, the average girl in Chicago and in New Mexico was bigger and taller than the average boy in Chicago and in New Mexico, respectively. Nevertheless, the high-skill girls seemed to lose much of their enthusiasm for the game when boys were playing. This study, and others like it, demonstrate that group contrast effects are most pronounced when girls and boys are TOGETHER. When they are separated, girls are more free to explore different ways of being, and likewise boys. The best way to get boys to play the flute is to create an all-boys band (see the closing chapter of my book Why Gender Matters for an example from Calgary Alberta in this regard). When girls and boys are together, boys are more likely to say, "Flutes are for girls." Likewise for cooking. Likewise for dance.

What's stunning is that Dr. Halpern - a former president of the APA - and her colleagues, all tenured professors, show no awareness of the extensive literature on this topic. On this topic, in this section, they cite only papers written by their co-authors. They literally seem not to have read anything which they themselves did not publish.

What evidence do the authors cite? In the next paragraph, they claim that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." Note first of all how they have changed the topic. The authors have slipped in the assumption that a single-sex classroom is equivalent to making children's sex salient. In fact, the empirical evidence - and my own first-hand observations at more than 300 schools - suggests just the opposite. At coed schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at coed schools is almost always a BOY. At girls' schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at a girls' school is always a GIRL. There is a great deal of evidence (e.g. Kessels and Hannover, cited above) that one's own biological sex is less salient when everybody in the classroom is a girl, then when girls and boys are together and everybody wonders whether Emily likes Justin.But let's proceed with the authors' assertion that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." What evidence do they provide in support of this assertion? A study by Lacy Hilliard and Lynn Liben (one of the paper's co-authors) of 57 four-year-olds! Hilliard and Liben found that when teachers emphasized that boys are boys and girls are girls, in this COED setting, that all sorts of bad things happened. Well, OK. And explain to me how this is relevant to an ALL-GIRLS classroom? It's not.

The authors then assert that "boys who spend more time with other boys become increasingly aggressive." That's a very broad and general statement. What evidence do they provide in support of this extraordinary statement? Just one study, written by two of the paper's co-authors, Carol Martin and Richard Fabes ( Martin Fabes 2001). And who were the subjects in this study? The subjects were 61 four-year-olds, 28 boys and 33 girls. How large was this effect? The authors never state the size of the effect in the original study (see p. 439), except that it was "significant" at the p=0.05 level.

Let's just state the syllogism here:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore boys' elementary schools, boys' middle schools and boys' high schools are a bad idea for all boys everywhere.

Huh? I think it would be more reasonable to conclude:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore you should be cautious about enrolling your son in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona.

This article has been widely reported in media such as The New York Times and the Washington Post as the authoritative and indisputable last word documenting the negative effects of single-sex education. But the bias in this article really makes Rush Limbaugh look like a model of impartiality and restraint.

The authors of the article in Science continue this paragraph with the assertion that "girls who spend more time with other girls become more sex-typed" - and what's the sole citation provided in support of this claim? Once again, Martin & Fabes, 2001. So: if it's true of 33 "mostly Caucasian" girls from "middle- to upper-middle class families, with 70% of the children living in two- parent households", attending preschool, then it must be true of all girls everywhere, at all grade levels. No cautions, no disclaimers.

Let it not be said that the authors of the article for Science ignore only the work of other authors. They ignore their own studies, if their own studies don't fit their preconceived ideas in this article. For example, Fabes, Martin, Hanish et al. 2003 - a paper written by three of the co-authors of last week's article for Science - documented some unexpected BENEFICIAL effects of same-sex play for both girls and boys. But the authors of last week's paper for Science never mention the paper, even though they wrote it. Or at least three of them did.

Science magazine is certainly one of the most prestigious scholarly journals in the world. The fact that Science would publish such an article is just weird, and troubling. Just as troubling is the fact that so many leading newspapers such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe and The Washington Post would accept such claims without checking the evidence.

Speaking of evidence: There's also no evidence in the article for Science that any of the eight authors have ever actually visited a single-sex school. So I invited all eight authors to attend the 7th International Conference of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, a conference which I am hosting, Saturday and Sunday October 8 and 9, in Orlando, Florida. There's still time to register. We will have 91 different presenters giving 58 different presentations. It will be a great opportunity for these authors to meet teachers and administrators who have seen first-hand how effective this format can be, for some students.

There's much more wrong with this article besides the fact that they based conclusions about the purported "harm" of single-sex education entirely on research conducted in coed preschools to big conclusions. You will find more on this point at my personal web site, www.leonardsax.com/Science.htm.

Which leads to the question: why are these authors, all tenured professors, so anxious to attack single-sex schools, regardless of - or even in spite of - the evidence?

But that's a topic for another day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Are Single-Sex Schools Actually DANGEROUS?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender."

# data[].attributes.body
The authors then solemnly state, "Research has demonstrated that, when environments label individuals and segregate along some characteristic (e.g. gender, eye color, or randomly assigned t-shirt groups), children infer that the groups differ in important ways." Well, certainly. This is a robust finding which I discuss at length in my book Girls on the Edge, chapter 6, especially pages 174 - 180. I and others refer to this effect as "group contrast effects" although it goes by various names. People, including children, do tend to exaggerate the differences between groups. In their article published last week in Science, Dr. Halpern and her colleagues then provide another conjecture (bottom of the 1st column, p. 1707): ". . .it is likely that these effects would be even more powerful when sex is used to divide children into entirely separate classrooms or schools rather than merely into separate lines to go to lunch." What evidence do the authors provide in support of this conjecture? Zero. Zilch. Nada. They got nothing. More troubling, they show no awareness that this conjecture has been tested and found to be false. For example, consider the classic study by Carol Cronin Weisfeld and colleagues

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." This section has received extensive coverage in national and international media. It was the basis for an article last Friday in the Washington Post, " Single-sex education may do more harm than good"; " Children at single-sex schools more likely to be sexist" ( The Daily Telegraph); " Single-sex schools make students sexist" ( The Daily Beast) and so forth. But ALL the studies cited in the SCIENCE article regarding "negative impacts" with regard to sexism were in fact studies involving a small number of PRE-SCHOOL students attending a COED pre-kindergarten, all of which were authored or co-authored by one or more of the authors of the SCIENCE paper. The files are their references #24 ( Martin & Halverson 1981), #25 (), #27 ( Martin & Fabes 2001) and #28 ( Fabes & Martin 1997).

We're talking about that section of the article in Science under the heading, "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." The authors begin this section by acknowledging that "some proponents of SS [single-sex] education claim it is well suited to countering sexism. . ." They then conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings because the contrast between the segregated classroom and the mixed-sex structure of the surrounding world provides evidence to children that sex is a core human characteristic . . ."

Perhaps Halpern, Eliot, Bigler et al. believe that if we didn't have any single-sex classrooms, then children would have no evidence that "sex is a core human characteristic." More importantly, these authors provide no evidence for their conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings." In fact, this conjecture has been tested, and proven false, in multiple studies, none of which is cited by Halpern et al. One of the most compelling of these papers is the study published by Ursula Kessels and Bettina Hannover, in their paper entitled "When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender-related self-knowledge in single-sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students' physics-related self-concept of ability." These investigators randomly assigned 401 8th-grade girls from coed schools either to study science in an all-girls classroom or in a coed classroom. They found that girls in the all-girls classroom were less aware of "being a girl" and less aware of gender stereotypes regarding science, compared to girls who were randomly assigned to the coed classroom. This study directly refutes the conjecture of Halpern et al., yet they never mention it. (We will consider another similar study, by Carol Cronin Weisfeld, in a moment.)

The authors then solemnly state, "Research has demonstrated that, when environments label individuals and segregate along some characteristic (e.g. gender, eye color, or randomly assigned t-shirt groups), children infer that the groups differ in important ways." Well, certainly. This is a robust finding which I discuss at length in my book Girls on the Edge, chapter 6, especially pages 174 - 180. I and others refer to this effect as "group contrast effects" although it goes by various names. People, including children, do tend to exaggerate the differences between groups. In their article published last week in Science, Dr. Halpern and her colleagues then provide another conjecture (bottom of the 1st column, p. 1707): ". . .it is likely that these effects would be even more powerful when sex is used to divide children into entirely separate classrooms or schools rather than merely into separate lines to go to lunch." What evidence do the authors provide in support of this conjecture? Zero. Zilch. Nada. They got nothing. More troubling, they show no awareness that this conjecture has been tested and found to be false. For example, consider the classic study by Carol Cronin Weisfeld and colleagues, who videotaped girls in Chicago playing dodgeball, first girls against girls, then girls and boys together. Then they did the same thing with Native American children on a Hopi reservation in New Mexico. When Chicago girls played against other Chicago girls, there was lots of variation in the style and quality of play. Some of the girls were really serious about the game: as soon as play began, those girls would adopt what coaches call the "athletic stance," knees bent, arms flexed, eyes focused, ready to jump for the ball. When play got under way, these girls were competitors: they would jump for the ball, grab it, sometimes even wrestling the ball away from another girl. The girls who were most engaged were, not surprisingly, the highest-skilled girls at playing the game. Other girls were not particularly excited about the game and certainly were not jumping and grabbing for the ball; again, not surprisingly, these girls were less skilled. Weisfeld and colleagues found the same variation in engagement and skill among the Native American girls in New Mexico. When boys were brought into the gym so that there were an equal number of girls and boys playing, the picture changed. New Mexico Hopi girls still participated in the game, but the high-skill girls no longer demonstrated their skill. They didn't want to fight the boys for the ball. When the boys were playing, the high-skill Hopi girls looked very much like the low-skill girls. Most of the high-skill Chicago girls didn't even hang around for the game when boys were playing. Instead, they left the playing area altogether and went off in little groups to dance with one another or to snack on potato chips. Most of these kids, girls and boys, were 12 years old. In this study, the average girl in Chicago and in New Mexico was bigger and taller than the average boy in Chicago and in New Mexico, respectively. Nevertheless, the high-skill girls seemed to lose much of their enthusiasm for the game when boys were playing. This study, and others like it, demonstrate that group contrast effects are most pronounced when girls and boys are TOGETHER. When they are separated, girls are more free to explore different ways of being, and likewise boys. The best way to get boys to play the flute is to create an all-boys band (see the closing chapter of my book Why Gender Matters for an example from Calgary Alberta in this regard). When girls and boys are together, boys are more likely to say, "Flutes are for girls." Likewise for cooking. Likewise for dance.

What's stunning is that Dr. Halpern - a former president of the APA - and her colleagues, all tenured professors, show no awareness of the extensive literature on this topic. On this topic, in this section, they cite only papers written by their co-authors. They literally seem not to have read anything which they themselves did not publish.

What evidence do the authors cite? In the next paragraph, they claim that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." Note first of all how they have changed the topic. The authors have slipped in the assumption that a single-sex classroom is equivalent to making children's sex salient. In fact, the empirical evidence - and my own first-hand observations at more than 300 schools - suggests just the opposite. At coed schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at coed schools is almost always a BOY. At girls' schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at a girls' school is always a GIRL. There is a great deal of evidence (e.g. Kessels and Hannover, cited above) that one's own biological sex is less salient when everybody in the classroom is a girl, then when girls and boys are together and everybody wonders whether Emily likes Justin.But let's proceed with the authors' assertion that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." What evidence do they provide in support of this assertion? A study by Lacy Hilliard and Lynn Liben (one of the paper's co-authors) of 57 four-year-olds! Hilliard and Liben found that when teachers emphasized that boys are boys and girls are girls, in this COED setting, that all sorts of bad things happened. Well, OK. And explain to me how this is relevant to an ALL-GIRLS classroom? It's not.

The authors then assert that "boys who spend more time with other boys become increasingly aggressive." That's a very broad and general statement. What evidence do they provide in support of this extraordinary statement? Just one study, written by two of the paper's co-authors, Carol Martin and Richard Fabes ( Martin Fabes 2001). And who were the subjects in this study? The subjects were 61 four-year-olds, 28 boys and 33 girls. How large was this effect? The authors never state the size of the effect in the original study (see p. 439), except that it was "significant" at the p=0.05 level.

Let's just state the syllogism here:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore boys' elementary schools, boys' middle schools and boys' high schools are a bad idea for all boys everywhere.

Huh? I think it would be more reasonable to conclude:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore you should be cautious about enrolling your son in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona.

This article has been widely reported in media such as The New York Times and the Washington Post as the authoritative and indisputable last word documenting the negative effects of single-sex education. But the bias in this article really makes Rush Limbaugh look like a model of impartiality and restraint.

The authors of the article in Science continue this paragraph with the assertion that "girls who spend more time with other girls become more sex-typed" - and what's the sole citation provided in support of this claim? Once again, Martin & Fabes, 2001. So: if it's true of 33 "mostly Caucasian" girls from "middle- to upper-middle class families, with 70% of the children living in two- parent households", attending preschool, then it must be true of all girls everywhere, at all grade levels. No cautions, no disclaimers.

Let it not be said that the authors of the article for Science ignore only the work of other authors. They ignore their own studies, if their own studies don't fit their preconceived ideas in this article. For example, Fabes, Martin, Hanish et al. 2003 - a paper written by three of the co-authors of last week's article for Science - documented some unexpected BENEFICIAL effects of same-sex play for both girls and boys. But the authors of last week's paper for Science never mention the paper, even though they wrote it. Or at least three of them did.

Science magazine is certainly one of the most prestigious scholarly journals in the world. The fact that Science would publish such an article is just weird, and troubling. Just as troubling is the fact that so many leading newspapers such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe and The Washington Post would accept such claims without checking the evidence.

Speaking of evidence: There's also no evidence in the article for Science that any of the eight authors have ever actually visited a single-sex school. So I invited all eight authors to attend the 7th International Conference of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, a conference which I am hosting, Saturday and Sunday October 8 and 9, in Orlando, Florida. There's still time to register. We will have 91 different presenters giving 58 different presentations. It will be a great opportunity for these authors to meet teachers and administrators who have seen first-hand how effective this format can be, for some students.

There's much more wrong with this article besides the fact that they based conclusions about the purported "harm" of single-sex education entirely on research conducted in coed preschools to big conclusions. You will find more on this point at my personal web site, www.leonardsax.com/Science.htm.

Which leads to the question: why are these authors, all tenured professors, so anxious to attack single-sex schools, regardless of - or even in spite of - the evidence?

But that's a topic for another day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Are Single-Sex Schools Actually DANGEROUS?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender."

# data[].attributes.body
Perhaps Halpern, Eliot, Bigler et al. believe that if we didn't have any single-sex classrooms, then children would have no evidence that "sex is a core human characteristic." More importantly, these authors provide no evidence for their conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings." In fact, this conjecture has been tested, and proven false, in multiple studies, none of which is cited by Halpern et al. One of the most compelling of these papers is the study published by Ursula Kessels and Bettina Hannover, in their paper entitled "When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender-related self-knowledge in single-sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students' physics-related self-concept of ability." These investigators randomly assigned 401 8th-grade girls from coed schools either to study science in an all-girls classroom or in a coed classroom. They found that girls in the all-girls classroom were less aware of "being a girl" and less aware of gender stereotypes regarding science, compared to girls who were randomly assigned to the coed classroom. This study directly refutes the conjecture of Halpern et al., yet they never mention it. (We will consider another similar study, by Carol Cronin Weisfeld, in a moment.)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." This section has received extensive coverage in national and international media. It was the basis for an article last Friday in the Washington Post, " Single-sex education may do more harm than good"; " Children at single-sex schools more likely to be sexist" ( The Daily Telegraph); " Single-sex schools make students sexist" ( The Daily Beast) and so forth. But ALL the studies cited in the SCIENCE article regarding "negative impacts" with regard to sexism were in fact studies involving a small number of PRE-SCHOOL students attending a COED pre-kindergarten, all of which were authored or co-authored by one or more of the authors of the SCIENCE paper. The files are their references #24 ( Martin & Halverson 1981), #25 (), #27 ( Martin & Fabes 2001) and #28 ( Fabes & Martin 1997).

We're talking about that section of the article in Science under the heading, "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender." The authors begin this section by acknowledging that "some proponents of SS [single-sex] education claim it is well suited to countering sexism. . ." They then conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings because the contrast between the segregated classroom and the mixed-sex structure of the surrounding world provides evidence to children that sex is a core human characteristic . . ."

Perhaps Halpern, Eliot, Bigler et al. believe that if we didn't have any single-sex classrooms, then children would have no evidence that "sex is a core human characteristic." More importantly, these authors provide no evidence for their conjecture that "gender divisions are made even more salient in SS settings." In fact, this conjecture has been tested, and proven false, in multiple studies, none of which is cited by Halpern et al. One of the most compelling of these papers is the study published by Ursula Kessels and Bettina Hannover, in their paper entitled "When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender-related self-knowledge in single-sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students' physics-related self-concept of ability." These investigators randomly assigned 401 8th-grade girls from coed schools either to study science in an all-girls classroom or in a coed classroom. They found that girls in the all-girls classroom were less aware of "being a girl" and less aware of gender stereotypes regarding science, compared to girls who were randomly assigned to the coed classroom. This study directly refutes the conjecture of Halpern et al., yet they never mention it. (We will consider another similar study, by Carol Cronin Weisfeld, in a moment.)

The authors then solemnly state, "Research has demonstrated that, when environments label individuals and segregate along some characteristic (e.g. gender, eye color, or randomly assigned t-shirt groups), children infer that the groups differ in important ways." Well, certainly. This is a robust finding which I discuss at length in my book Girls on the Edge, chapter 6, especially pages 174 - 180. I and others refer to this effect as "group contrast effects" although it goes by various names. People, including children, do tend to exaggerate the differences between groups. In their article published last week in Science, Dr. Halpern and her colleagues then provide another conjecture (bottom of the 1st column, p. 1707): ". . .it is likely that these effects would be even more powerful when sex is used to divide children into entirely separate classrooms or schools rather than merely into separate lines to go to lunch." What evidence do the authors provide in support of this conjecture? Zero. Zilch. Nada. They got nothing. More troubling, they show no awareness that this conjecture has been tested and found to be false. For example, consider the classic study by Carol Cronin Weisfeld and colleagues, who videotaped girls in Chicago playing dodgeball, first girls against girls, then girls and boys together. Then they did the same thing with Native American children on a Hopi reservation in New Mexico. When Chicago girls played against other Chicago girls, there was lots of variation in the style and quality of play. Some of the girls were really serious about the game: as soon as play began, those girls would adopt what coaches call the "athletic stance," knees bent, arms flexed, eyes focused, ready to jump for the ball. When play got under way, these girls were competitors: they would jump for the ball, grab it, sometimes even wrestling the ball away from another girl. The girls who were most engaged were, not surprisingly, the highest-skilled girls at playing the game. Other girls were not particularly excited about the game and certainly were not jumping and grabbing for the ball; again, not surprisingly, these girls were less skilled. Weisfeld and colleagues found the same variation in engagement and skill among the Native American girls in New Mexico. When boys were brought into the gym so that there were an equal number of girls and boys playing, the picture changed. New Mexico Hopi girls still participated in the game, but the high-skill girls no longer demonstrated their skill. They didn't want to fight the boys for the ball. When the boys were playing, the high-skill Hopi girls looked very much like the low-skill girls. Most of the high-skill Chicago girls didn't even hang around for the game when boys were playing. Instead, they left the playing area altogether and went off in little groups to dance with one another or to snack on potato chips. Most of these kids, girls and boys, were 12 years old. In this study, the average girl in Chicago and in New Mexico was bigger and taller than the average boy in Chicago and in New Mexico, respectively. Nevertheless, the high-skill girls seemed to lose much of their enthusiasm for the game when boys were playing. This study, and others like it, demonstrate that group contrast effects are most pronounced when girls and boys are TOGETHER. When they are separated, girls are more free to explore different ways of being, and likewise boys. The best way to get boys to play the flute is to create an all-boys band (see the closing chapter of my book Why Gender Matters for an example from Calgary Alberta in this regard). When girls and boys are together, boys are more likely to say, "Flutes are for girls." Likewise for cooking. Likewise for dance.

What's stunning is that Dr. Halpern - a former president of the APA - and her colleagues, all tenured professors, show no awareness of the extensive literature on this topic. On this topic, in this section, they cite only papers written by their co-authors. They literally seem not to have read anything which they themselves did not publish.

What evidence do the authors cite? In the next paragraph, they claim that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." Note first of all how they have changed the topic. The authors have slipped in the assumption that a single-sex classroom is equivalent to making children's sex salient. In fact, the empirical evidence - and my own first-hand observations at more than 300 schools - suggests just the opposite. At coed schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at coed schools is almost always a BOY. At girls' schools, there's always a class clown, and the class clown at a girls' school is always a GIRL. There is a great deal of evidence (e.g. Kessels and Hannover, cited above) that one's own biological sex is less salient when everybody in the classroom is a girl, then when girls and boys are together and everybody wonders whether Emily likes Justin.But let's proceed with the authors' assertion that "When teachers make children's sex salient, students choose to spend less time interacting with other-sex peers." What evidence do they provide in support of this assertion? A study by Lacy Hilliard and Lynn Liben (one of the paper's co-authors) of 57 four-year-olds! Hilliard and Liben found that when teachers emphasized that boys are boys and girls are girls, in this COED setting, that all sorts of bad things happened. Well, OK. And explain to me how this is relevant to an ALL-GIRLS classroom? It's not.

The authors then assert that "boys who spend more time with other boys become increasingly aggressive." That's a very broad and general statement. What evidence do they provide in support of this extraordinary statement? Just one study, written by two of the paper's co-authors, Carol Martin and Richard Fabes ( Martin Fabes 2001). And who were the subjects in this study? The subjects were 61 four-year-olds, 28 boys and 33 girls. How large was this effect? The authors never state the size of the effect in the original study (see p. 439), except that it was "significant" at the p=0.05 level.

Let's just state the syllogism here:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore boys' elementary schools, boys' middle schools and boys' high schools are a bad idea for all boys everywhere.

Huh? I think it would be more reasonable to conclude:
1. Four-year-old middle-class white boys who play with other four-year-old middle-class white boys in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona are somewhat more likely, later in the school year, to be aggressive.
2. Therefore you should be cautious about enrolling your son in a coed preschool in Tempe Arizona.

This article has been widely reported in media such as The New York Times and the Washington Post as the authoritative and indisputable last word documenting the negative effects of single-sex education. But the bias in this article really makes Rush Limbaugh look like a model of impartiality and restraint.

The authors of the article in Science continue this paragraph with the assertion that "girls who spend more time with other girls become more sex-typed" - and what's the sole citation provided in support of this claim? Once again, Martin & Fabes, 2001. So: if it's true of 33 "mostly Caucasian" girls from "middle- to upper-middle class families, with 70% of the children living in two- parent households", attending preschool, then it must be true of all girls everywhere, at all grade levels. No cautions, no disclaimers.

Let it not be said that the authors of the article for Science ignore only the work of other authors. They ignore their own studies, if their own studies don't fit their preconceived ideas in this article. For example, Fabes, Martin, Hanish et al. 2003 - a paper written by three of the co-authors of last week's article for Science - documented some unexpected BENEFICIAL effects of same-sex play for both girls and boys. But the authors of last week's paper for Science never mention the paper, even though they wrote it. Or at least three of them did.

Science magazine is certainly one of the most prestigious scholarly journals in the world. The fact that Science would publish such an article is just weird, and troubling. Just as troubling is the fact that so many leading newspapers such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe and The Washington Post would accept such claims without checking the evidence.

Speaking of evidence: There's also no evidence in the article for Science that any of the eight authors have ever actually visited a single-sex school. So I invited all eight authors to attend the 7th International Conference of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, a conference which I am hosting, Saturday and Sunday October 8 and 9, in Orlando, Florida. There's still time to register. We will have 91 different presenters giving 58 different presentations. It will be a great opportunity for these authors to meet teachers and administrators who have seen first-hand how effective this format can be, for some students.

There's much more wrong with this article besides the fact that they based conclusions about the purported "harm" of single-sex education entirely on research conducted in coed preschools to big conclusions. You will find more on this point at my personal web site, www.leonardsax.com/Science.htm.

Which leads to the question: why are these authors, all tenured professors, so anxious to attack single-sex schools, regardless of - or even in spite of - the evidence?

But that's a topic for another day.

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Are Single-Sex Schools Actually DANGEROUS?

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An article was published last week in SCIENCE entitled "The Pseudoscience of Single- Sex Schooling." The lead author is Dr. Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association. You can download the full text here. The article contains a section entitled "Negative Impacts of Highlighting Gender."

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David Robertson, headmaster at Shawnigan Lake School, a coed boarding high school in BC, says boys and girls ultimately have a more enriching educational experience when they get to learn together. "There's a cross-pollination that goes on in the academic environment," Robertson says. "The diligence and attentiveness of girls positively affects boys, while the liveliness of boys inspires girls. They learn from and are inspired by each other."

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Coed education versus single sex schools

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The only thing more complicated than boys and girls trying to figure each other out, is figuring out whether or not they should attend a single sex school or a

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"The camaraderie that develops between the boys and girls is very special. In a single-sex school, you miss out on that."

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Coed education versus single sex schools

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The only thing more complicated than boys and girls trying to figure each other out, is figuring out whether or not they should attend a single sex school or a

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Plus, another argument against single-gender schools is that the real world doesn’t afford a society where students can work with or interact with one gender over another. Thus, when it comes time for these students to head into the workforce, or even to college, they will face an adjustment period.

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Imagine a typical school classroom and you may conjure up images of boys and girls coexisting, learning alongside each other, raising their hands in equal numbers. However, that's not usually the case.

According to 2010 data from NCES and the U.S. Census Bureau, from prekindergarten to senior year of high school, male students outnumber female students significantly in public school classrooms: 54 percent to 46 percent in pre-K and 51 percent to 49 percent from first grade to 12th grade.

So with the disproportionate stats in the American classroom, is it beneficial to separate the sexes from each other? Much debate has centered around this topic for years.

The Case for Single-Gender Classrooms

Jefferson Leadership Academies was in the spotlight in 1999 when it became the first public middle school in the United States to have entirely single-gender classes. Its reason? Research showed that girls did better in math and science in all-girl settings. This decision came just a few years after Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls - a book that argues that gender bias prevents girls from receiving education equal to that of their male counterparts - was published by two American University professors.

Of course, single-gender education in grade schools didn't start in 1999, as it existed in the 18th century before coeducation started to trend in the 19th century. However, it picked up steam in the late '90s, especially when the Supreme Court made a ruling in the United States v. Virginia case involving male-only military college Virginia Military Institute. The conclusion: Single-sex classrooms were only constitutional if comparable resources were available to both genders. In 2006, the No Child Left Behind Act added a provision giving single-sex classrooms and schools the ability to exist as long as they are voluntary. From 1995 to 2006, the number of single-sex schools in the United States rose from 3 to 241.

There are many reasons why people advocate for single-gender classrooms, including less distraction (especially during teenage years when hormones rage), less " gender intensification " where coed settings reinforce stereotypes, and more instruction tailored to the unique ways boys and girls learn.
Approximately 30% of Catholic high schools in America are single-sex. See why you might consider a Catholic school, even if you're not Catholic.

The Case Against Single-Gender Classrooms

In 2007, Jefferson Leadership Academies reversed its same-sex curriculum after issues with disappointing test scores and scheduling conflicts arose. Detractors of same-sex classrooms weren't surprised since one of the biggest challenges to single-sex classrooms is the lack of concrete evidence that they boost achievement. As Margaret Talbot wrote in her 2012 New Yorker piece, "The evidence wasn't very good then [the '90s] for a gap between the genders' learning styles so significant that it would mandate separate instruction, and it hasn't gotten any better."

Plus, another argument against single-gender schools is that the real world doesn't afford a society where students can work with or interact with one gender over another. Thus, when it comes time for these students to head into the workforce, or even to college, they will face an adjustment period.

Related to college, one of the biggest reasons why single-gender classes popped up in the '90s was to help women do better in the classroom, but recent statistics show that women attend college in larger numbers, outnumbering men by 14 percent.

In fact, girls are less likely than boys to be held back in American schools, too, so some argue that the effort put into helping girls in the classroom may be counterintuitive when the boys are the ones who aren't doing as well.

Pros and Cons of Single-Sex Education

The Bottom Line

It may seem like a new development in education, but single-sex education is actually a throwback to curriculum systems of yesteryear, from way back before the 19th century. The factor that's changed is simply the reason behind the implementation, which may continue to evolve as new trends and legislation emerge. It remains to be proven whether single-sex classrooms are beneficial to students.

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Imagine a typical school classroom and you may conjure up images of boys and girls coexisting, learning alongside each other, raising their hands in equal numbers. However, that's not usually the case. According to 2010 data from NCES and the U.S.

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“Anything we organize along any variable, if we’re saying boys here, girls there, we’re telling kids that the way they learn is different,” said Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at Claremont McKenna College in California and dean of social sciences at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, who has testified on behalf of the ACLU. “We are, in fact, enhancing sexual stereotyping.”

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Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

The team of psychologists examined all available research on single-sex education published within the past seven years, which included 184 studies comprising 1.6 million students from kindergarten to 12th grade in 21 different countries, and found no evidence to support proponents' claims.

In their study, which appeared Monday in Psychological Bulletin, a journal published by the American Psychological Association, the psychologists said that students who attended single-sex schools weren't any better off than peers who attended coed programs in terms of self-esteem or performance in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects.

Some education experts and parents have argued in favor of single-sex programs on the basis that boys are more dominating in classrooms and that separating kids by sex might enhance girls' opportunities to excel in STEM subjects.

For example, Leonard Sax, founder and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE), has said that more graduates of all-girls schools will go on to major in hard sciences and math in college than those who graduate from coed schools.

But Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies and co-author of the study, said science doesn't back that claim.

"There's basically no difference," she said. "What you see is that there's one nondifference after another."

Hyde said advocates of single-sex education often cite research studies that lack control groups, comparing, for example, a single-sex school within a privileged community with a coed school where students enjoy fewer advantages.

"The two best predictors of kids' school success are the parents' education and the family income," Hyde said. "It's just a meaningless comparison" if you pit single-sex schools against coed schools that differ on those measures. When you control for factors like affluence and parental education, the studies showing the advantages of single-sex classrooms "just aren't supported by science," she said.

Single-sex education in public schools came about with the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Department of Education in 2006 rolled back a portion of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in public education and guarantees equal federal funding for boys and girls across all education-related activities, in order to allow single-sex public schools and classrooms.

However, enrollment in single-sex education must be entirely voluntary, and school districts need to prove that there's a compelling educational reason for creating a single-sex classroom or school.

More than 500 public schools in the U.S. offered single-sex classrooms or educational opportunities during the 2011-12 school year, with 116 of them entirely single-sex and the remainder with at least some coed opportunities alongside single-sex classes, according to NASSPE.

Opponents say single-sex classes and schools perpetuate gender stereotypes and that segregating kids by gender smacks of the kind of discrimination that - until Brown v. Board of Education struck down the practice in 1954 - allowed schools to segregate based on race.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for example, has been investigating single-sex schools across the country and filing lawsuits against those it says promote gender stereotypes.

"Anything we organize along any variable, if we're saying boys here, girls there, we're telling kids that the way they learn is different," said Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at Claremont McKenna College in California and dean of social sciences at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, who has testified on behalf of the ACLU. "We are, in fact, enhancing sexual stereotyping."

She added, "Who's not doing well are poorer kids, kids from minority groups, but that really is not related to whether they're female or male. There's plenty of room for improvement in education, but this is not the right kind of improvement."

Halpern and Hyde, along with several other social scientists, co-authored a 2011 article in the journal Science that said single-sex education advocates had used cherry-picked data and weak scientific evidence to present what the authors referred to as "pseudoscience."

Hyde said that personal anecdotes from graduates of single-sex schools about their great experiences there can often flavor the dialogue about how helpful it actually is for students, but that "the adult world is coed."

"From my point of view, segregation is a bad thing," she said. "But if people found that girls really thrive in girls' schools and girls' classes, I'd say, well, let's think about it. But it's just not the case."

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Study: Single-sex education offers no benefits

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Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

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Can Cause Gender Stereotyping And Undermine Gender Equality Often, the only occasions that all-boys and all-girls schools mix is at school discos, prom and other formal events – times when both genders dress up and try to impress the other. This tends to sexualise the other gender, and creates unrealistic expectations of how men and women should look and behave in normal life. Single-sex schools can therefore promote gender stereotyping, and undermine gender equality

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Take a look at our pros and cons to help decide if your children would benefit more from attending single-sex schools or by having a mixed-gender education.

Are you wondering about whether to send your children to single sex schools? Will they miss out by not having a mixed-gender education, or will they do better? There are a number of strong opinions on either side of the debate on which type of education is better. It really depends on the individual family and child.
Looking for after-school child care? Find carers in your area now.
If you're trying to make that important decision for your child, here are some pros and cons of single-sex schools to consider:
Pros of all-boys schools

Tailor learning to boy-specific needs
Many experts agree that boys and girls learn in different styles. An all-boys school allows teachers to make slight but significant changes to the way they teach - for instance volume of speaking voice, frequent checks of understanding to maintain focus on the topic, incorporation of motion into learning activities and use of mild team-based competition. This is effective in increasing boys' engagement with the class material and their work ethic.

Build their confidence in the classroom
Because boys tend to mature later than girls, there is sometimes a lot of stress on them at a mixed school as they are constantly being compared to their female classmates. An all-boys learning environment lets boys develop at their own pace, without the comparisons, and helps them build confidence.

Encourage participation in non-traditional subjects
There is a higher participation of boys in non-traditional subjects and extra-curricular activities at single-sex schools. At mixed school, many boys shy away from joining things like choir or drama for fear of being branded unmasculine. At an all-boys school, they can worry less about fitting a gender stereotype, because all participants are boys.

Reduce pressure on the non-sporty
In mixed schools, girls tend to dominate student leadership, organisation and academic honours. This means that boys tend to retreat instead into a more narrowly defined sphere of power where they can assert their own dominance-- almost always sports. This tends to disempower all those boys who are not naturally sporty. In an all-boys school, all the power -- and all the responsibility -- must rest with boys, and they respond well to that challenge.

Pros of all-girls schools

Build their confidence in the classroom
Many girls worry about appearing 'geeky' or 'nerdy' in front of boys, so in the classroom they are embarrassed to raise their hands and step forward with their thoughts. At an all girls school they won't have this inhibition, so they may have more confidence to contribute to class discussions and ask questions, which will help their learning in the long run.

Reduce the amount of classroom disruption
Studies have shown that young boys tend to be more disruptive in the classroom in a mixed-school environment. When teachers have to stop the class to talk to them, it interrupts the lesson and wastes your daughters learning time.

Increase their opportunity for sport involvement
Participation of girls in sport clubs is a lot higher in all-girls schools. This is because in a mixed gender school, sports resources tend to be aimed more at boys' sport participation. Additionally, around boys, many teenage girls are self conscious of the way they look doing sports, so will refrain from taking part.

Boost female independence
All-girls schools can also contribute a great deal to female self-esteem and independence. Teenage girls can see that they don't need boys to make them strong and powerful and that girls can excel in typically male dominated fields such as maths and science.

Cons of single sex schools
As with anything, it's good to consider both sides before you decide what schooling will work best for your son or daughter.

Don't prepare them for 'the real world'
Some experts feel that a mixed school better prepares children for their future 'in the real world', where men and women aren't segregated. When children develop relationships with the other gender, they are provided with experience for later on in life when both genders work alongside each other in all aspects of jobs and professions. The other gender isn't seen as separate, strange or different, but as a normal colleague.

Don't let them experience (and thereby respect) diversity
At school, children are taught to learn to get along with people from other cultures, races, learning styles, ages and backgrounds. It teaches tolerance and acceptance of people's differences and ways of thinking. Why should gender be any different? Mixed gender schools teach students to respect gender differences and similarities from an early age.

Can cause gender stereotyping and undermine gender equality
Often, the only occasions that all-boys and all-girls schools mix is at school discos, prom and other formal events - times when both genders dress up and try to impress the other. This tends to sexualise the other gender, and creates unrealistic expectations of how men and women should look and behave in normal life. Single-sex schools can therefore promote gender stereotyping, and undermine gender equality.

Deny opportunities for mixed gender friendships
We have to respect that there are fundamental differences between genders - whether that's socially or biologically determined. However, these differences are not the same for everyone. For this reason, some girls feel more comfortable making friends with a group of boys, and vice versa. This opportunity to make friends with a group of the other gender doesn't present itself at single-sex schools.

How can you decide if single-sex schools are best for your child?
Sit with your child and make a list of what's working for them at their current school and what's not. If you and your child are seriously considering single-sex schools, see if it's possible for them to shadow a student at a single sex school for a day. If that's not possible, then make sure you go and visit one on an open day. Your child will be able to experience the atmosphere for themselves and be able to compare it to their current mixed school. Additionally, ask current students about their experiences, and how they feel about being in a single gender learning environment.

Write up a list of pros and cons with your child and, when possible, try and reach a decision together. After all, this is their future and their opinion should be worth something in the discussion.

There's no one answer that fits each child and what is right for your child may not be for another. With careful research and open discussions, you can find the right choice for your family.

For help and assistance with your child's education, check out our range of local tutors.

Read Next: 101 After-School Activities for Kids

Read Next: 10 Options for After-School Child Care

Read Next: 10 Ways to Get Kids to Love School

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Take a look at our pros and cons to help decide if your children would benefit more from attending single-sex schools or by having a mixed-gender education. Are you wondering about whether to send your children to single sex schools? Will they miss out by not having a mixed-gender education, ...

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don't Prepare Them For 'The Real World 'Some experts feel that a mixed school better prepares children for their future ‘in the real world’, where men and women aren’t segregated. When children develop relationships with the other gender, they are provided with experience for later on in life when both genders work alongside each other in all aspects of jobs and professions. The other gender isn’t seen as separate, strange or different, but as a normal colleague.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Take a look at our pros and cons to help decide if your children would benefit more from attending single-sex schools or by having a mixed-gender education.

Are you wondering about whether to send your children to single sex schools? Will they miss out by not having a mixed-gender education, or will they do better? There are a number of strong opinions on either side of the debate on which type of education is better. It really depends on the individual family and child.
Looking for after-school child care? Find carers in your area now.
If you're trying to make that important decision for your child, here are some pros and cons of single-sex schools to consider:
Pros of all-boys schools

Tailor learning to boy-specific needs
Many experts agree that boys and girls learn in different styles. An all-boys school allows teachers to make slight but significant changes to the way they teach - for instance volume of speaking voice, frequent checks of understanding to maintain focus on the topic, incorporation of motion into learning activities and use of mild team-based competition. This is effective in increasing boys' engagement with the class material and their work ethic.

Build their confidence in the classroom
Because boys tend to mature later than girls, there is sometimes a lot of stress on them at a mixed school as they are constantly being compared to their female classmates. An all-boys learning environment lets boys develop at their own pace, without the comparisons, and helps them build confidence.

Encourage participation in non-traditional subjects
There is a higher participation of boys in non-traditional subjects and extra-curricular activities at single-sex schools. At mixed school, many boys shy away from joining things like choir or drama for fear of being branded unmasculine. At an all-boys school, they can worry less about fitting a gender stereotype, because all participants are boys.

Reduce pressure on the non-sporty
In mixed schools, girls tend to dominate student leadership, organisation and academic honours. This means that boys tend to retreat instead into a more narrowly defined sphere of power where they can assert their own dominance-- almost always sports. This tends to disempower all those boys who are not naturally sporty. In an all-boys school, all the power -- and all the responsibility -- must rest with boys, and they respond well to that challenge.

Pros of all-girls schools

Build their confidence in the classroom
Many girls worry about appearing 'geeky' or 'nerdy' in front of boys, so in the classroom they are embarrassed to raise their hands and step forward with their thoughts. At an all girls school they won't have this inhibition, so they may have more confidence to contribute to class discussions and ask questions, which will help their learning in the long run.

Reduce the amount of classroom disruption
Studies have shown that young boys tend to be more disruptive in the classroom in a mixed-school environment. When teachers have to stop the class to talk to them, it interrupts the lesson and wastes your daughters learning time.

Increase their opportunity for sport involvement
Participation of girls in sport clubs is a lot higher in all-girls schools. This is because in a mixed gender school, sports resources tend to be aimed more at boys' sport participation. Additionally, around boys, many teenage girls are self conscious of the way they look doing sports, so will refrain from taking part.

Boost female independence
All-girls schools can also contribute a great deal to female self-esteem and independence. Teenage girls can see that they don't need boys to make them strong and powerful and that girls can excel in typically male dominated fields such as maths and science.

Cons of single sex schools
As with anything, it's good to consider both sides before you decide what schooling will work best for your son or daughter.

Don't prepare them for 'the real world'
Some experts feel that a mixed school better prepares children for their future 'in the real world', where men and women aren't segregated. When children develop relationships with the other gender, they are provided with experience for later on in life when both genders work alongside each other in all aspects of jobs and professions. The other gender isn't seen as separate, strange or different, but as a normal colleague.

Don't let them experience (and thereby respect) diversity
At school, children are taught to learn to get along with people from other cultures, races, learning styles, ages and backgrounds. It teaches tolerance and acceptance of people's differences and ways of thinking. Why should gender be any different? Mixed gender schools teach students to respect gender differences and similarities from an early age.

Can cause gender stereotyping and undermine gender equality
Often, the only occasions that all-boys and all-girls schools mix is at school discos, prom and other formal events - times when both genders dress up and try to impress the other. This tends to sexualise the other gender, and creates unrealistic expectations of how men and women should look and behave in normal life. Single-sex schools can therefore promote gender stereotyping, and undermine gender equality.

Deny opportunities for mixed gender friendships
We have to respect that there are fundamental differences between genders - whether that's socially or biologically determined. However, these differences are not the same for everyone. For this reason, some girls feel more comfortable making friends with a group of boys, and vice versa. This opportunity to make friends with a group of the other gender doesn't present itself at single-sex schools.

How can you decide if single-sex schools are best for your child?
Sit with your child and make a list of what's working for them at their current school and what's not. If you and your child are seriously considering single-sex schools, see if it's possible for them to shadow a student at a single sex school for a day. If that's not possible, then make sure you go and visit one on an open day. Your child will be able to experience the atmosphere for themselves and be able to compare it to their current mixed school. Additionally, ask current students about their experiences, and how they feel about being in a single gender learning environment.

Write up a list of pros and cons with your child and, when possible, try and reach a decision together. After all, this is their future and their opinion should be worth something in the discussion.

There's no one answer that fits each child and what is right for your child may not be for another. With careful research and open discussions, you can find the right choice for your family.

For help and assistance with your child's education, check out our range of local tutors.

Read Next: 101 After-School Activities for Kids

Read Next: 10 Options for After-School Child Care

Read Next: 10 Ways to Get Kids to Love School

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Take a look at our pros and cons to help decide if your children would benefit more from attending single-sex schools or by having a mixed-gender education. Are you wondering about whether to send your children to single sex schools? Will they miss out by not having a mixed-gender education, ...

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Deny Opportunities For Mixed Gender Friendships We have to respect that there are fundamental differences between genders – whether that’s socially or biologically determined. However, these differences are not the same for everyone. For this reason, some girls feel more comfortable making friends with a group of boys, and vice versa. This opportunity to make friends with a group of the other gender doesn’t present itself at single-sex schools.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Take a look at our pros and cons to help decide if your children would benefit more from attending single-sex schools or by having a mixed-gender education.

Are you wondering about whether to send your children to single sex schools? Will they miss out by not having a mixed-gender education, or will they do better? There are a number of strong opinions on either side of the debate on which type of education is better. It really depends on the individual family and child.
Looking for after-school child care? Find carers in your area now.
If you're trying to make that important decision for your child, here are some pros and cons of single-sex schools to consider:
Pros of all-boys schools

Tailor learning to boy-specific needs
Many experts agree that boys and girls learn in different styles. An all-boys school allows teachers to make slight but significant changes to the way they teach - for instance volume of speaking voice, frequent checks of understanding to maintain focus on the topic, incorporation of motion into learning activities and use of mild team-based competition. This is effective in increasing boys' engagement with the class material and their work ethic.

Build their confidence in the classroom
Because boys tend to mature later than girls, there is sometimes a lot of stress on them at a mixed school as they are constantly being compared to their female classmates. An all-boys learning environment lets boys develop at their own pace, without the comparisons, and helps them build confidence.

Encourage participation in non-traditional subjects
There is a higher participation of boys in non-traditional subjects and extra-curricular activities at single-sex schools. At mixed school, many boys shy away from joining things like choir or drama for fear of being branded unmasculine. At an all-boys school, they can worry less about fitting a gender stereotype, because all participants are boys.

Reduce pressure on the non-sporty
In mixed schools, girls tend to dominate student leadership, organisation and academic honours. This means that boys tend to retreat instead into a more narrowly defined sphere of power where they can assert their own dominance-- almost always sports. This tends to disempower all those boys who are not naturally sporty. In an all-boys school, all the power -- and all the responsibility -- must rest with boys, and they respond well to that challenge.

Pros of all-girls schools

Build their confidence in the classroom
Many girls worry about appearing 'geeky' or 'nerdy' in front of boys, so in the classroom they are embarrassed to raise their hands and step forward with their thoughts. At an all girls school they won't have this inhibition, so they may have more confidence to contribute to class discussions and ask questions, which will help their learning in the long run.

Reduce the amount of classroom disruption
Studies have shown that young boys tend to be more disruptive in the classroom in a mixed-school environment. When teachers have to stop the class to talk to them, it interrupts the lesson and wastes your daughters learning time.

Increase their opportunity for sport involvement
Participation of girls in sport clubs is a lot higher in all-girls schools. This is because in a mixed gender school, sports resources tend to be aimed more at boys' sport participation. Additionally, around boys, many teenage girls are self conscious of the way they look doing sports, so will refrain from taking part.

Boost female independence
All-girls schools can also contribute a great deal to female self-esteem and independence. Teenage girls can see that they don't need boys to make them strong and powerful and that girls can excel in typically male dominated fields such as maths and science.

Cons of single sex schools
As with anything, it's good to consider both sides before you decide what schooling will work best for your son or daughter.

Don't prepare them for 'the real world'
Some experts feel that a mixed school better prepares children for their future 'in the real world', where men and women aren't segregated. When children develop relationships with the other gender, they are provided with experience for later on in life when both genders work alongside each other in all aspects of jobs and professions. The other gender isn't seen as separate, strange or different, but as a normal colleague.

Don't let them experience (and thereby respect) diversity
At school, children are taught to learn to get along with people from other cultures, races, learning styles, ages and backgrounds. It teaches tolerance and acceptance of people's differences and ways of thinking. Why should gender be any different? Mixed gender schools teach students to respect gender differences and similarities from an early age.

Can cause gender stereotyping and undermine gender equality
Often, the only occasions that all-boys and all-girls schools mix is at school discos, prom and other formal events - times when both genders dress up and try to impress the other. This tends to sexualise the other gender, and creates unrealistic expectations of how men and women should look and behave in normal life. Single-sex schools can therefore promote gender stereotyping, and undermine gender equality.

Deny opportunities for mixed gender friendships
We have to respect that there are fundamental differences between genders - whether that's socially or biologically determined. However, these differences are not the same for everyone. For this reason, some girls feel more comfortable making friends with a group of boys, and vice versa. This opportunity to make friends with a group of the other gender doesn't present itself at single-sex schools.

How can you decide if single-sex schools are best for your child?
Sit with your child and make a list of what's working for them at their current school and what's not. If you and your child are seriously considering single-sex schools, see if it's possible for them to shadow a student at a single sex school for a day. If that's not possible, then make sure you go and visit one on an open day. Your child will be able to experience the atmosphere for themselves and be able to compare it to their current mixed school. Additionally, ask current students about their experiences, and how they feel about being in a single gender learning environment.

Write up a list of pros and cons with your child and, when possible, try and reach a decision together. After all, this is their future and their opinion should be worth something in the discussion.

There's no one answer that fits each child and what is right for your child may not be for another. With careful research and open discussions, you can find the right choice for your family.

For help and assistance with your child's education, check out our range of local tutors.

Read Next: 101 After-School Activities for Kids

Read Next: 10 Options for After-School Child Care

Read Next: 10 Ways to Get Kids to Love School

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Take a look at our pros and cons to help decide if your children would benefit more from attending single-sex schools or by having a mixed-gender education. Are you wondering about whether to send your children to single sex schools? Will they miss out by not having a mixed-gender education, ...

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related to college, one of the biggest reasons why single-gender classes popped up in the ’90s was to help women do better in the classroom, but recent statistics show that women attend college in larger numbers, outnumbering men by 14 percent.

In fact, girls are less likely than boys to be held back in American schools, too, so some argue that the effort put into helping girls in the classroom may be counter-intuitive when the boys are the ones who aren’t doing as well.

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Imagine a typical school classroom and you may conjure up images of boys and girls coexisting, learning alongside each other, raising their hands in equal numbers. However, that's not usually the case.

According to 2010 data from NCES and the U.S. Census Bureau, from prekindergarten to senior year of high school, male students outnumber female students significantly in public school classrooms: 54 percent to 46 percent in pre-K and 51 percent to 49 percent from first grade to 12th grade.

So with the disproportionate stats in the American classroom, is it beneficial to separate the sexes from each other? Much debate has centered around this topic for years.

The Case for Single-Gender Classrooms

Jefferson Leadership Academies was in the spotlight in 1999 when it became the first public middle school in the United States to have entirely single-gender classes. Its reason? Research showed that girls did better in math and science in all-girl settings. This decision came just a few years after Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls - a book that argues that gender bias prevents girls from receiving education equal to that of their male counterparts - was published by two American University professors.

Of course, single-gender education in grade schools didn't start in 1999, as it existed in the 18th century before coeducation started to trend in the 19th century. However, it picked up steam in the late '90s, especially when the Supreme Court made a ruling in the United States v. Virginia case involving male-only military college Virginia Military Institute. The conclusion: Single-sex classrooms were only constitutional if comparable resources were available to both genders. In 2006, the No Child Left Behind Act added a provision giving single-sex classrooms and schools the ability to exist as long as they are voluntary. From 1995 to 2006, the number of single-sex schools in the United States rose from 3 to 241.

There are many reasons why people advocate for single-gender classrooms, including less distraction (especially during teenage years when hormones rage), less " gender intensification " where coed settings reinforce stereotypes, and more instruction tailored to the unique ways boys and girls learn.
Approximately 30% of Catholic high schools in America are single-sex. See why you might consider a Catholic school, even if you're not Catholic.

The Case Against Single-Gender Classrooms

In 2007, Jefferson Leadership Academies reversed its same-sex curriculum after issues with disappointing test scores and scheduling conflicts arose. Detractors of same-sex classrooms weren't surprised since one of the biggest challenges to single-sex classrooms is the lack of concrete evidence that they boost achievement. As Margaret Talbot wrote in her 2012 New Yorker piece, "The evidence wasn't very good then [the '90s] for a gap between the genders' learning styles so significant that it would mandate separate instruction, and it hasn't gotten any better."

Plus, another argument against single-gender schools is that the real world doesn't afford a society where students can work with or interact with one gender over another. Thus, when it comes time for these students to head into the workforce, or even to college, they will face an adjustment period.

Related to college, one of the biggest reasons why single-gender classes popped up in the '90s was to help women do better in the classroom, but recent statistics show that women attend college in larger numbers, outnumbering men by 14 percent.

In fact, girls are less likely than boys to be held back in American schools, too, so some argue that the effort put into helping girls in the classroom may be counterintuitive when the boys are the ones who aren't doing as well.

Pros and Cons of Single-Sex Education

The Bottom Line

It may seem like a new development in education, but single-sex education is actually a throwback to curriculum systems of yesteryear, from way back before the 19th century. The factor that's changed is simply the reason behind the implementation, which may continue to evolve as new trends and legislation emerge. It remains to be proven whether single-sex classrooms are beneficial to students.

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Imagine a typical school classroom and you may conjure up images of boys and girls coexisting, learning alongside each other, raising their hands in equal numbers. However, that's not usually the case. According to 2010 data from NCES and the U.S.

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It’s not that I didn’t know how to communicate with boys or that it wasn’t possible to socialite outside of school, but by dividing people based on gender it becomes easy to see the opposite sex as the other, especially at the lower key stages.😇

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At the most basic level, segregation is wrong

Why is there so much prestige associated with a single sex school? The education might be good, and on paper it might be difficult to fault certain grammar or private schools in terms of quality of teaching, but there are far more important social issues that a same-sex education actively promotes.

I loved going to my all-girl school, but it wasn't until I left that I realised how certain things that seemed totally normal at the time could have turned out to be quite damaging. Being grateful there weren't boys there to distract us was something we were fed, not something we had learned ourselves.

It's not that I didn't kn ow how to communicate with boys or that it wasn't possible to socialise outside of school, but by dividing people based on gender it becomes easy to see the opposite sex as the other, especially at the lower key stages.

From the age of 11, students at same-sex schools are exposed to an environment prone to misunderstanding and discrimination, since it's the most stereotypical aspects of each sex that breed and take over.

My school definitely created a competitive environment, but not always based on grades. Having the smallest lunch brought with it an element of kudos.

Dieting became a trend to the extent that one of my friends used to eat an apple and drink a diet cola for lunch - the apple for calories and the cola to expand in your stomach to kid yourself into feeling full. I counted out six cashew nuts each day to make sure I wasn't eating too much fat.

This might be the same in a mixed school, but I can't see how it can't be worse in such a small bubble where you can only compare yourself to other girls. Being pleased you don't have to wear make-up to class because there aren't boys there is not progressive, it's the opposite.

Cerys Liddiard, now a student at Sheffield, said: "My girls' school shared a field with the boys' school and there was an invisible line down the middle which dinner ladies patrolled, and if you were seen socialising with the other sex you were told off and made to move."

Of course you can still really enjoy your time at a single sex school, but segregating people based on gender is old-fashioned and unnecessary.

A friend who went to Latymer Upper School, told me: "The worst thing was girls arriving for sixth form, totally ruined it," proves how being split into the sexes promotes and encourages differences between them. Especially when I knew people who hated moving to the boys' school near me for Sixth Form because they were picked on so badly.

The girls I went to school with were great and the education was fantastic, but I can't help feeling slightly sad about some of the ideas that were able to generate there. If you're going to wait outside the school gates for the opposite sex to walk past anyway, you may as well be learning with them.

Your school might not have made you a bigot and you might not worry about talking about your period in public, but the single-sex school still creates issues that can continue until you are sat at a pub table in your 20s with boys on one side and girls on the other.

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At the most basic level, segregation is wrong Why is there so much prestige associated with a single sex school? The education might be good, and on paper it might be difficult to fault certain grammar or private schools in terms of quality of teaching, but there are far more important social issues that a same-sex education actively promotes.

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Don't Let Them Experience (And Thereby Respect) DiversityAt school, children are taught to learn to get along with people from other cultures, races, learning styles, ages and backgrounds. It teaches tolerance and acceptance of people’s differences and ways of thinking. Why should gender be any different? Mixed gender schools teach students to respect gender differences and similarities from an early age.

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Take a look at our pros and cons to help decide if your children would benefit more from attending single-sex schools or by having a mixed-gender education.

Are you wondering about whether to send your children to single sex schools? Will they miss out by not having a mixed-gender education, or will they do better? There are a number of strong opinions on either side of the debate on which type of education is better. It really depends on the individual family and child.
Looking for after-school child care? Find carers in your area now.
If you're trying to make that important decision for your child, here are some pros and cons of single-sex schools to consider:
Pros of all-boys schools

Tailor learning to boy-specific needs
Many experts agree that boys and girls learn in different styles. An all-boys school allows teachers to make slight but significant changes to the way they teach - for instance volume of speaking voice, frequent checks of understanding to maintain focus on the topic, incorporation of motion into learning activities and use of mild team-based competition. This is effective in increasing boys' engagement with the class material and their work ethic.

Build their confidence in the classroom
Because boys tend to mature later than girls, there is sometimes a lot of stress on them at a mixed school as they are constantly being compared to their female classmates. An all-boys learning environment lets boys develop at their own pace, without the comparisons, and helps them build confidence.

Encourage participation in non-traditional subjects
There is a higher participation of boys in non-traditional subjects and extra-curricular activities at single-sex schools. At mixed school, many boys shy away from joining things like choir or drama for fear of being branded unmasculine. At an all-boys school, they can worry less about fitting a gender stereotype, because all participants are boys.

Reduce pressure on the non-sporty
In mixed schools, girls tend to dominate student leadership, organisation and academic honours. This means that boys tend to retreat instead into a more narrowly defined sphere of power where they can assert their own dominance-- almost always sports. This tends to disempower all those boys who are not naturally sporty. In an all-boys school, all the power -- and all the responsibility -- must rest with boys, and they respond well to that challenge.

Pros of all-girls schools

Build their confidence in the classroom
Many girls worry about appearing 'geeky' or 'nerdy' in front of boys, so in the classroom they are embarrassed to raise their hands and step forward with their thoughts. At an all girls school they won't have this inhibition, so they may have more confidence to contribute to class discussions and ask questions, which will help their learning in the long run.

Reduce the amount of classroom disruption
Studies have shown that young boys tend to be more disruptive in the classroom in a mixed-school environment. When teachers have to stop the class to talk to them, it interrupts the lesson and wastes your daughters learning time.

Increase their opportunity for sport involvement
Participation of girls in sport clubs is a lot higher in all-girls schools. This is because in a mixed gender school, sports resources tend to be aimed more at boys' sport participation. Additionally, around boys, many teenage girls are self conscious of the way they look doing sports, so will refrain from taking part.

Boost female independence
All-girls schools can also contribute a great deal to female self-esteem and independence. Teenage girls can see that they don't need boys to make them strong and powerful and that girls can excel in typically male dominated fields such as maths and science.

Cons of single sex schools
As with anything, it's good to consider both sides before you decide what schooling will work best for your son or daughter.

Don't prepare them for 'the real world'
Some experts feel that a mixed school better prepares children for their future 'in the real world', where men and women aren't segregated. When children develop relationships with the other gender, they are provided with experience for later on in life when both genders work alongside each other in all aspects of jobs and professions. The other gender isn't seen as separate, strange or different, but as a normal colleague.

Don't let them experience (and thereby respect) diversity
At school, children are taught to learn to get along with people from other cultures, races, learning styles, ages and backgrounds. It teaches tolerance and acceptance of people's differences and ways of thinking. Why should gender be any different? Mixed gender schools teach students to respect gender differences and similarities from an early age.

Can cause gender stereotyping and undermine gender equality
Often, the only occasions that all-boys and all-girls schools mix is at school discos, prom and other formal events - times when both genders dress up and try to impress the other. This tends to sexualise the other gender, and creates unrealistic expectations of how men and women should look and behave in normal life. Single-sex schools can therefore promote gender stereotyping, and undermine gender equality.

Deny opportunities for mixed gender friendships
We have to respect that there are fundamental differences between genders - whether that's socially or biologically determined. However, these differences are not the same for everyone. For this reason, some girls feel more comfortable making friends with a group of boys, and vice versa. This opportunity to make friends with a group of the other gender doesn't present itself at single-sex schools.

How can you decide if single-sex schools are best for your child?
Sit with your child and make a list of what's working for them at their current school and what's not. If you and your child are seriously considering single-sex schools, see if it's possible for them to shadow a student at a single sex school for a day. If that's not possible, then make sure you go and visit one on an open day. Your child will be able to experience the atmosphere for themselves and be able to compare it to their current mixed school. Additionally, ask current students about their experiences, and how they feel about being in a single gender learning environment.

Write up a list of pros and cons with your child and, when possible, try and reach a decision together. After all, this is their future and their opinion should be worth something in the discussion.

There's no one answer that fits each child and what is right for your child may not be for another. With careful research and open discussions, you can find the right choice for your family.

For help and assistance with your child's education, check out our range of local tutors.

Read Next: 101 After-School Activities for Kids

Read Next: 10 Options for After-School Child Care

Read Next: 10 Ways to Get Kids to Love School

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Take a look at our pros and cons to help decide if your children would benefit more from attending single-sex schools or by having a mixed-gender education. Are you wondering about whether to send your children to single sex schools? Will they miss out by not having a mixed-gender education, ...

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More than one-third of Americans feel parents should have the option of sending their child to a single-sex school. (25% of respondents oppose the idea.)

Yet when asked if they’d consider a single-sex school for their own children, only 14% said they “definitely would” and 28% said they “probably would.”

The fact remains that there are relatively few single-sex schools in our nation’s public education system, and where they do exist, they are offered as an option rather than a requirement. If the single-sex education movement continues, you may find yourself in a position to vote for or against it in your own community.

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Should boys and girls be taught separately? Does single-sex education boost academic success? Read the arguments for and against.

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More than 500 public schools in the U.S. offered single-sex classrooms or educational opportunities during the 2011–12 school year, with 116 of them entirely single-sex and the remainder with at least some coed opportunities alongside single-sex classes, according to NASSPE.

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Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

The team of psychologists examined all available research on single-sex education published within the past seven years, which included 184 studies comprising 1.6 million students from kindergarten to 12th grade in 21 different countries, and found no evidence to support proponents' claims.

In their study, which appeared Monday in Psychological Bulletin, a journal published by the American Psychological Association, the psychologists said that students who attended single-sex schools weren't any better off than peers who attended coed programs in terms of self-esteem or performance in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects.

Some education experts and parents have argued in favor of single-sex programs on the basis that boys are more dominating in classrooms and that separating kids by sex might enhance girls' opportunities to excel in STEM subjects.

For example, Leonard Sax, founder and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE), has said that more graduates of all-girls schools will go on to major in hard sciences and math in college than those who graduate from coed schools.

But Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies and co-author of the study, said science doesn't back that claim.

"There's basically no difference," she said. "What you see is that there's one nondifference after another."

Hyde said advocates of single-sex education often cite research studies that lack control groups, comparing, for example, a single-sex school within a privileged community with a coed school where students enjoy fewer advantages.

"The two best predictors of kids' school success are the parents' education and the family income," Hyde said. "It's just a meaningless comparison" if you pit single-sex schools against coed schools that differ on those measures. When you control for factors like affluence and parental education, the studies showing the advantages of single-sex classrooms "just aren't supported by science," she said.

Single-sex education in public schools came about with the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Department of Education in 2006 rolled back a portion of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in public education and guarantees equal federal funding for boys and girls across all education-related activities, in order to allow single-sex public schools and classrooms.

However, enrollment in single-sex education must be entirely voluntary, and school districts need to prove that there's a compelling educational reason for creating a single-sex classroom or school.

More than 500 public schools in the U.S. offered single-sex classrooms or educational opportunities during the 2011-12 school year, with 116 of them entirely single-sex and the remainder with at least some coed opportunities alongside single-sex classes, according to NASSPE.

Opponents say single-sex classes and schools perpetuate gender stereotypes and that segregating kids by gender smacks of the kind of discrimination that - until Brown v. Board of Education struck down the practice in 1954 - allowed schools to segregate based on race.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for example, has been investigating single-sex schools across the country and filing lawsuits against those it says promote gender stereotypes.

"Anything we organize along any variable, if we're saying boys here, girls there, we're telling kids that the way they learn is different," said Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at Claremont McKenna College in California and dean of social sciences at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, who has testified on behalf of the ACLU. "We are, in fact, enhancing sexual stereotyping."

She added, "Who's not doing well are poorer kids, kids from minority groups, but that really is not related to whether they're female or male. There's plenty of room for improvement in education, but this is not the right kind of improvement."

Halpern and Hyde, along with several other social scientists, co-authored a 2011 article in the journal Science that said single-sex education advocates had used cherry-picked data and weak scientific evidence to present what the authors referred to as "pseudoscience."

Hyde said that personal anecdotes from graduates of single-sex schools about their great experiences there can often flavor the dialogue about how helpful it actually is for students, but that "the adult world is coed."

"From my point of view, segregation is a bad thing," she said. "But if people found that girls really thrive in girls' schools and girls' classes, I'd say, well, let's think about it. But it's just not the case."

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Study: Single-sex education offers no benefits

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Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

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Hyde said advocates of single-sex education often cite research studies that lack control groups, comparing, for example, a single-sex school within a privileged community with a coed school where students enjoy fewer advantages.

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Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

The team of psychologists examined all available research on single-sex education published within the past seven years, which included 184 studies comprising 1.6 million students from kindergarten to 12th grade in 21 different countries, and found no evidence to support proponents' claims.

In their study, which appeared Monday in Psychological Bulletin, a journal published by the American Psychological Association, the psychologists said that students who attended single-sex schools weren't any better off than peers who attended coed programs in terms of self-esteem or performance in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects.

Some education experts and parents have argued in favor of single-sex programs on the basis that boys are more dominating in classrooms and that separating kids by sex might enhance girls' opportunities to excel in STEM subjects.

For example, Leonard Sax, founder and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE), has said that more graduates of all-girls schools will go on to major in hard sciences and math in college than those who graduate from coed schools.

But Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies and co-author of the study, said science doesn't back that claim.

"There's basically no difference," she said. "What you see is that there's one nondifference after another."

Hyde said advocates of single-sex education often cite research studies that lack control groups, comparing, for example, a single-sex school within a privileged community with a coed school where students enjoy fewer advantages.

"The two best predictors of kids' school success are the parents' education and the family income," Hyde said. "It's just a meaningless comparison" if you pit single-sex schools against coed schools that differ on those measures. When you control for factors like affluence and parental education, the studies showing the advantages of single-sex classrooms "just aren't supported by science," she said.

Single-sex education in public schools came about with the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Department of Education in 2006 rolled back a portion of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in public education and guarantees equal federal funding for boys and girls across all education-related activities, in order to allow single-sex public schools and classrooms.

However, enrollment in single-sex education must be entirely voluntary, and school districts need to prove that there's a compelling educational reason for creating a single-sex classroom or school.

More than 500 public schools in the U.S. offered single-sex classrooms or educational opportunities during the 2011-12 school year, with 116 of them entirely single-sex and the remainder with at least some coed opportunities alongside single-sex classes, according to NASSPE.

Opponents say single-sex classes and schools perpetuate gender stereotypes and that segregating kids by gender smacks of the kind of discrimination that - until Brown v. Board of Education struck down the practice in 1954 - allowed schools to segregate based on race.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for example, has been investigating single-sex schools across the country and filing lawsuits against those it says promote gender stereotypes.

"Anything we organize along any variable, if we're saying boys here, girls there, we're telling kids that the way they learn is different," said Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at Claremont McKenna College in California and dean of social sciences at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, who has testified on behalf of the ACLU. "We are, in fact, enhancing sexual stereotyping."

She added, "Who's not doing well are poorer kids, kids from minority groups, but that really is not related to whether they're female or male. There's plenty of room for improvement in education, but this is not the right kind of improvement."

Halpern and Hyde, along with several other social scientists, co-authored a 2011 article in the journal Science that said single-sex education advocates had used cherry-picked data and weak scientific evidence to present what the authors referred to as "pseudoscience."

Hyde said that personal anecdotes from graduates of single-sex schools about their great experiences there can often flavor the dialogue about how helpful it actually is for students, but that "the adult world is coed."

"From my point of view, segregation is a bad thing," she said. "But if people found that girls really thrive in girls' schools and girls' classes, I'd say, well, let's think about it. But it's just not the case."

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Study: Single-sex education offers no benefits

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Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

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These "gender-sensitive" teaching methods sometimes are dressed up in the legitimating jargon of neuroscience, but the popular notion that boys and girls are "hard-wired" to learn differently rests on gross generalizations about sex differences in the brain. Today, much of the so-called "science" of sex difference has been debunked, but that hasn't kept public schools from modeling programs on bogus theories. As a result, boys are being deprived of the opportunity to develop crucial social skills, such as working collaboratively and thinking creatively, while girls are being denied the opportunity to build test-taking skills and learn how to succeed under pressure.

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In her first days on the job, L.A. Unified's new Superintendent Michelle King suggested that single-sex education might attract more families to the district and improve student achievement. She wouldn't be the first district leader to vest hope - not to mention public funds - in all-boys and all-girls schools. But LAUSD should be wary of segregating its students by sex.

The notion of boys' and girls' schools conjures rosy images of elite private institutions, but the history of single-sex education in the United States is rife with misguided prejudice. In the 1870s, retired Harvard professor Edward H. Clarke ignited popular interest in single-sex education - by arguing that exposing adolescent girls to the rigors of a standard education would cause their reproductive organs to wither. In the 1950s, after racial segregation was declared unconstitutional, sex-segregated public schools were created across the South to keep boys and girls of different racial backgrounds apart.

Yes, there are some terrific boys-only and girls-only public schools out there. But are they great schools because they are single-sex?

Today, in a major reversal, single-sex education has found political champions among supporters of gender equality and those who believe that black and Latino boys in particular will benefit from being educated apart from their female peers. In 2001, then-Sen. Hilary Clinton co-sponsored a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act that provided federal funds to fledgling single-sex public schools, spurring local school districts across the country to experiment with sex segregation.

A few years later, however, a government-commissioned study noted a lack evidence proving that single-sex education improved student performance. The Bush administration decided to press forward anyway, and in 2006 issued guidelines signaling it wouldn't go after single-sex public schools for violating laws against sex discrimination in education. Today, there are nearly 80 single-sex public schools in the U.S., up from just a handful three decades ago. Hundreds more schools separate boys and girls during academic instruction, though the campuses are technically coed.

So, how's it going?

Supporters point to a few carefully chosen examples to prove single-sex education raises test scores and boosts students' confidence. But the larger story is the overwhelming number of single-sex public school programs that haven't produced any positive results. In 2014, researchers Erin Pahlke, Janet Shibley Hyde, and Carlie M. Allison published a meta-analysis of existing studies on single-sex instruction. Their exhaustive review found no significant advantage, for boys or girls, over coeducation.

Yes, there are some terrific boys-only and girls-only public schools out there. But are they great schools because they are single-sex? The evidence suggests not. Research shows that successful schools do certain things - such as creating strong mentoring relationships and keeping class sizes to a manageable level - that benefit students whether boys and girls learn together or apart.

Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that single-sex education can do real harm by perpetuating limiting gender stereotypes. In single-sex schools across the country, girls' classrooms are decorated in pastels while boys are surrounded by bold colors; girls are assigned to read romantic fiction, while boys are given non-fiction books; boys are subjected to frequent drills and timed tests, while girls are assigned group work and non-competitive activities - and on and on.

These "gender-sensitive" teaching methods sometimes are dressed up in the legitimating jargon of neuroscience, but the popular notion that boys and girls are "hard-wired" to learn differently rests on gross generalizations about sex differences in the brain. Today, much of the so-called "science" of sex difference has been debunked, but that hasn't kept public schools from modeling programs on bogus theories. As a result, boys are being deprived of the opportunity to develop crucial social skills, such as working collaboratively and thinking creatively, while girls are being denied the opportunity to build test-taking skills and learn how to succeed under pressure.

Past mistakes don't prove that single-sex schools can never work in public education in the future. But unless LAUSD takes a critical look at the facts and research on single-sex education, it hardly can be expected to do any better moving forward.
Juliet A. Williams is a professor in the UCLA Department of Gender Studies, and the author of the forthcoming "The Separation Solution: Single-Sex Public Education and the New Politics of Gender Equality." Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

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What's wrong with single-sex schools? A lot.

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In her first days on the job, L.A. Unified's new Superintendent Michelle King suggested that single-sex education might attract more families to the district and improve student achievement. She wouldn't be the first district leader to vest hope - not to mention public funds - in all-boys and all-girls schools.

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"Boys in single-sex school tend to create their own artificial hierarchies where only those in the 1st XV rugby team are truly valued while girls-only schools sometimes suffer a degree of emotional intensity that can lead to bullying."

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All parents looking for a school for their daughter have broadly similar criteria in mind. They want somewhere that readies their child for the world beyond the school gates, academically and socially.

Outdated Notions

That is why I am often perplexed when they end up being swayed by outdated notions about girls performing better in single sex schools and plump for that deeply unrealistic world. After all, if girls do not learn to socialise with boys as children, what happens when they go out into the work place? They may have a clutch of A*s and a first class degree but if they cannot meaningfully converse and communicate with male colleagues they will be at a huge disadvantage.

An Ability to Thrive?

Girls at Brighton College are always rather non-plussed when they read press reports about their supposed inability to thrive because they are sitting next to boys in class. Ask any of the 500 girls at Brighton whether the presence of the boys they have been learning alongside for the last five years has held them back and I am fairly certain the look on their faces would say it all. Dozens of them secure A* grades In physics each year, with several going on to study traditional 'male' subjects like science and mathematics at Oxbridge.

Co-ed School, Co-ed Life

Girls and boys at Brighton are used to learning together, helping each other in their studies and benefiting from what each gender brings to the table. Just as importantly, I feel, it is second nature for them to chat with each other and experience the growing up process together, which in turn helps each sex to understand the other more. Recent research published in the American journal Science backs this notion up.

Kindness and Heirarchies

It states that women who were educated at single-sex schools were "compromised in the workplace as their ability to network and cooperate with men was inhibited". I say all this from the point of view of someone who has been a teacher in both environments and, of course, there are many great schools which are co-ed and many which are single sex. But there is something, I feel, much more common to schools that educate both boys and girls and that something is kindness.

Boys in single-sex school tend to create their own artificial hierarchies where only those in the 1st XV rugby team are truly valued while girls-only schools sometimes suffer a degree of emotional intensity that can lead to bullying.

Contrast that with a co-educational world where girls admire the boys who dance, sing or act, and so, therefore, do the boys. Contrast that too with a mixed environment where the emotional intensity of all girls is diluted by the boys.

In other words, there is a place for everyone and an environment where girls and boys can be themselves. Indeed, there is a sense that people respect and, yes, even admire each other for their achievements. Perhaps that is why we are lucky enough to produce male dancers representing the country in summer 2016 at the Dance World Cup as well as female cricketers who play county and national level.

A More Tolerant Climate

When I interview girls who would like to join us in the sixth form, having attended a single sex school, they very often talk about the prospect of working in a gentler, more tolerant climate of a co-ed school. So what of the argument, then, still trotted out that girls achieve more academically, particularly in the more "male" subjects, when not in close proximity to the boys? Many years of research in the UK and elsewhere in the world casts serious doubt on this.

The Science research mentioned earlier reports that arguments like this relied on "weak, cherry-picked or misconstrued scientific claims" and that, in fact, there is evidence "sex segregation increases gender stereotyping and legitimises institutional sexism". The real reason some all-girls schools have a strong track record in traditionally "masculine" subjects, such as physics, is that they're very selective institutions.

Bright girls are more likely to study physics than those of average ability. Whether they are sharing classes with boys is largely irrelevant. And it is worth remembering that in most counties of England, co-educational schools top the academic league tables - here in Sussex, there are several single sex schools but the top performing one is mixed.

Returning to those anxious parents at the start of this column, it seems they are voting with their feet now. There are now a third fewer girls' schools and half as many boys' schools as there were 20 years ago - a trend that I believe will continue. That's just plain common sense.
Photography: Brighton College

Whether you need advice or comfort on your choice of school, pastoral care, the best way to tackle exams, or how best to confront teenage problems, Independent School Parent provides all the answers. Our expert writers include some of the top names in teaching, ensuring that Independent School Parent always supplies impartial advice that you can trust.

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Girls Educated in Single-Sex Schools at a Huge Disadvantage | Independent School Parent

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All parents looking for a school for their daughter have broadly similar criteria in mind. They want somewhere that readies their child for the world beyond the school gates, academically and socially. Outdated Notions That is why I am often perplexed when they end up being swayed by outdated notions about girls performing better ...

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"Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that single-sex education can do real harm by perpetuating limiting gender stereotypes. In single-sex schools across the country, girls' classrooms are decorated in pastels while boys are surrounded by bold colors; girls are assigned to read romantic fiction, while boys are given non-fiction books; boys are subjected to frequent drills and timed tests, while girls are assigned group work and non-competitive activities — and on and on."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In her first days on the job, L.A. Unified's new Superintendent Michelle King suggested that single-sex education might attract more families to the district and improve student achievement. She wouldn't be the first district leader to vest hope - not to mention public funds - in all-boys and all-girls schools. But LAUSD should be wary of segregating its students by sex.

The notion of boys' and girls' schools conjures rosy images of elite private institutions, but the history of single-sex education in the United States is rife with misguided prejudice. In the 1870s, retired Harvard professor Edward H. Clarke ignited popular interest in single-sex education - by arguing that exposing adolescent girls to the rigors of a standard education would cause their reproductive organs to wither. In the 1950s, after racial segregation was declared unconstitutional, sex-segregated public schools were created across the South to keep boys and girls of different racial backgrounds apart.

Yes, there are some terrific boys-only and girls-only public schools out there. But are they great schools because they are single-sex?

Today, in a major reversal, single-sex education has found political champions among supporters of gender equality and those who believe that black and Latino boys in particular will benefit from being educated apart from their female peers. In 2001, then-Sen. Hilary Clinton co-sponsored a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act that provided federal funds to fledgling single-sex public schools, spurring local school districts across the country to experiment with sex segregation.

A few years later, however, a government-commissioned study noted a lack evidence proving that single-sex education improved student performance. The Bush administration decided to press forward anyway, and in 2006 issued guidelines signaling it wouldn't go after single-sex public schools for violating laws against sex discrimination in education. Today, there are nearly 80 single-sex public schools in the U.S., up from just a handful three decades ago. Hundreds more schools separate boys and girls during academic instruction, though the campuses are technically coed.

So, how's it going?

Supporters point to a few carefully chosen examples to prove single-sex education raises test scores and boosts students' confidence. But the larger story is the overwhelming number of single-sex public school programs that haven't produced any positive results. In 2014, researchers Erin Pahlke, Janet Shibley Hyde, and Carlie M. Allison published a meta-analysis of existing studies on single-sex instruction. Their exhaustive review found no significant advantage, for boys or girls, over coeducation.

Yes, there are some terrific boys-only and girls-only public schools out there. But are they great schools because they are single-sex? The evidence suggests not. Research shows that successful schools do certain things - such as creating strong mentoring relationships and keeping class sizes to a manageable level - that benefit students whether boys and girls learn together or apart.

Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that single-sex education can do real harm by perpetuating limiting gender stereotypes. In single-sex schools across the country, girls' classrooms are decorated in pastels while boys are surrounded by bold colors; girls are assigned to read romantic fiction, while boys are given non-fiction books; boys are subjected to frequent drills and timed tests, while girls are assigned group work and non-competitive activities - and on and on.

These "gender-sensitive" teaching methods sometimes are dressed up in the legitimating jargon of neuroscience, but the popular notion that boys and girls are "hard-wired" to learn differently rests on gross generalizations about sex differences in the brain. Today, much of the so-called "science" of sex difference has been debunked, but that hasn't kept public schools from modeling programs on bogus theories. As a result, boys are being deprived of the opportunity to develop crucial social skills, such as working collaboratively and thinking creatively, while girls are being denied the opportunity to build test-taking skills and learn how to succeed under pressure.

Past mistakes don't prove that single-sex schools can never work in public education in the future. But unless LAUSD takes a critical look at the facts and research on single-sex education, it hardly can be expected to do any better moving forward.
Juliet A. Williams is a professor in the UCLA Department of Gender Studies, and the author of the forthcoming "The Separation Solution: Single-Sex Public Education and the New Politics of Gender Equality." Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

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What's wrong with single-sex schools? A lot.

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In her first days on the job, L.A. Unified's new Superintendent Michelle King suggested that single-sex education might attract more families to the district and improve student achievement. She wouldn't be the first district leader to vest hope - not to mention public funds - in all-boys and all-girls schools.

# data[].attributes.body
It states that women who were educated at single-sex schools were “compromised in the workplace as their ability to network and cooperate with men was inhibited”. I say all this from the point of view of someone who has been a teacher in both environments and, of course, there are many great schools which are co-ed and many which are single sex.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
All parents looking for a school for their daughter have broadly similar criteria in mind. They want somewhere that readies their child for the world beyond the school gates, academically and socially.

Outdated Notions

That is why I am often perplexed when they end up being swayed by outdated notions about girls performing better in single sex schools and plump for that deeply unrealistic world. After all, if girls do not learn to socialise with boys as children, what happens when they go out into the work place? They may have a clutch of A*s and a first class degree but if they cannot meaningfully converse and communicate with male colleagues they will be at a huge disadvantage.

An Ability to Thrive?

Girls at Brighton College are always rather non-plussed when they read press reports about their supposed inability to thrive because they are sitting next to boys in class. Ask any of the 500 girls at Brighton whether the presence of the boys they have been learning alongside for the last five years has held them back and I am fairly certain the look on their faces would say it all. Dozens of them secure A* grades In physics each year, with several going on to study traditional 'male' subjects like science and mathematics at Oxbridge.

Co-ed School, Co-ed Life

Girls and boys at Brighton are used to learning together, helping each other in their studies and benefiting from what each gender brings to the table. Just as importantly, I feel, it is second nature for them to chat with each other and experience the growing up process together, which in turn helps each sex to understand the other more. Recent research published in the American journal Science backs this notion up.

Kindness and Heirarchies

It states that women who were educated at single-sex schools were "compromised in the workplace as their ability to network and cooperate with men was inhibited". I say all this from the point of view of someone who has been a teacher in both environments and, of course, there are many great schools which are co-ed and many which are single sex. But there is something, I feel, much more common to schools that educate both boys and girls and that something is kindness.

Boys in single-sex school tend to create their own artificial hierarchies where only those in the 1st XV rugby team are truly valued while girls-only schools sometimes suffer a degree of emotional intensity that can lead to bullying.

Contrast that with a co-educational world where girls admire the boys who dance, sing or act, and so, therefore, do the boys. Contrast that too with a mixed environment where the emotional intensity of all girls is diluted by the boys.

In other words, there is a place for everyone and an environment where girls and boys can be themselves. Indeed, there is a sense that people respect and, yes, even admire each other for their achievements. Perhaps that is why we are lucky enough to produce male dancers representing the country in summer 2016 at the Dance World Cup as well as female cricketers who play county and national level.

A More Tolerant Climate

When I interview girls who would like to join us in the sixth form, having attended a single sex school, they very often talk about the prospect of working in a gentler, more tolerant climate of a co-ed school. So what of the argument, then, still trotted out that girls achieve more academically, particularly in the more "male" subjects, when not in close proximity to the boys? Many years of research in the UK and elsewhere in the world casts serious doubt on this.

The Science research mentioned earlier reports that arguments like this relied on "weak, cherry-picked or misconstrued scientific claims" and that, in fact, there is evidence "sex segregation increases gender stereotyping and legitimises institutional sexism". The real reason some all-girls schools have a strong track record in traditionally "masculine" subjects, such as physics, is that they're very selective institutions.

Bright girls are more likely to study physics than those of average ability. Whether they are sharing classes with boys is largely irrelevant. And it is worth remembering that in most counties of England, co-educational schools top the academic league tables - here in Sussex, there are several single sex schools but the top performing one is mixed.

Returning to those anxious parents at the start of this column, it seems they are voting with their feet now. There are now a third fewer girls' schools and half as many boys' schools as there were 20 years ago - a trend that I believe will continue. That's just plain common sense.
Photography: Brighton College

Whether you need advice or comfort on your choice of school, pastoral care, the best way to tackle exams, or how best to confront teenage problems, Independent School Parent provides all the answers. Our expert writers include some of the top names in teaching, ensuring that Independent School Parent always supplies impartial advice that you can trust.

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Girls Educated in Single-Sex Schools at a Huge Disadvantage | Independent School Parent

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All parents looking for a school for their daughter have broadly similar criteria in mind. They want somewhere that readies their child for the world beyond the school gates, academically and socially. Outdated Notions That is why I am often perplexed when they end up being swayed by outdated notions about girls performing better ...

# data[].attributes.body
opponents say single-sex classes and schools perpetuate gender stereotypes and that segregating kids by gender smacks of the kind of discrimination that — until Brown v. Board of Education struck down the practice in 1954 — allowed schools to segregate based on race.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for example, has been investigating single-sex schools across the country and filing lawsuits against those it says promote gender stereotypes.

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Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

The team of psychologists examined all available research on single-sex education published within the past seven years, which included 184 studies comprising 1.6 million students from kindergarten to 12th grade in 21 different countries, and found no evidence to support proponents' claims.

In their study, which appeared Monday in Psychological Bulletin, a journal published by the American Psychological Association, the psychologists said that students who attended single-sex schools weren't any better off than peers who attended coed programs in terms of self-esteem or performance in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects.

Some education experts and parents have argued in favor of single-sex programs on the basis that boys are more dominating in classrooms and that separating kids by sex might enhance girls' opportunities to excel in STEM subjects.

For example, Leonard Sax, founder and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE), has said that more graduates of all-girls schools will go on to major in hard sciences and math in college than those who graduate from coed schools.

But Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies and co-author of the study, said science doesn't back that claim.

"There's basically no difference," she said. "What you see is that there's one nondifference after another."

Hyde said advocates of single-sex education often cite research studies that lack control groups, comparing, for example, a single-sex school within a privileged community with a coed school where students enjoy fewer advantages.

"The two best predictors of kids' school success are the parents' education and the family income," Hyde said. "It's just a meaningless comparison" if you pit single-sex schools against coed schools that differ on those measures. When you control for factors like affluence and parental education, the studies showing the advantages of single-sex classrooms "just aren't supported by science," she said.

Single-sex education in public schools came about with the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Department of Education in 2006 rolled back a portion of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in public education and guarantees equal federal funding for boys and girls across all education-related activities, in order to allow single-sex public schools and classrooms.

However, enrollment in single-sex education must be entirely voluntary, and school districts need to prove that there's a compelling educational reason for creating a single-sex classroom or school.

More than 500 public schools in the U.S. offered single-sex classrooms or educational opportunities during the 2011-12 school year, with 116 of them entirely single-sex and the remainder with at least some coed opportunities alongside single-sex classes, according to NASSPE.

Opponents say single-sex classes and schools perpetuate gender stereotypes and that segregating kids by gender smacks of the kind of discrimination that - until Brown v. Board of Education struck down the practice in 1954 - allowed schools to segregate based on race.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for example, has been investigating single-sex schools across the country and filing lawsuits against those it says promote gender stereotypes.

"Anything we organize along any variable, if we're saying boys here, girls there, we're telling kids that the way they learn is different," said Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at Claremont McKenna College in California and dean of social sciences at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, who has testified on behalf of the ACLU. "We are, in fact, enhancing sexual stereotyping."

She added, "Who's not doing well are poorer kids, kids from minority groups, but that really is not related to whether they're female or male. There's plenty of room for improvement in education, but this is not the right kind of improvement."

Halpern and Hyde, along with several other social scientists, co-authored a 2011 article in the journal Science that said single-sex education advocates had used cherry-picked data and weak scientific evidence to present what the authors referred to as "pseudoscience."

Hyde said that personal anecdotes from graduates of single-sex schools about their great experiences there can often flavor the dialogue about how helpful it actually is for students, but that "the adult world is coed."

"From my point of view, segregation is a bad thing," she said. "But if people found that girls really thrive in girls' schools and girls' classes, I'd say, well, let's think about it. But it's just not the case."

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Study: Single-sex education offers no benefits

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Single-sex schools do not provide any social or educational benefits over coeducational programs within the public school system, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Their findings dispel assertions from proponents of same-sex schools that boys and girls learn differently and must therefore be separated to reach their full potential.

# data[].attributes.body
"The notion of boys' and girls' schools conjures rosy images of elite private institutions, but the history of single-sex education in the United States is rife with misguided prejudice. In the 1870s, retired Harvard professor Edward H. Clarke ignited popular interest in single-sex education — by arguing that exposing adolescent girls to the rigors of a standard education would cause their reproductive organs to wither. In the 1950s, after racial segregation was declared unconstitutional, sex-segregated public schools were created across the South to keep boys and girls of different racial backgrounds apart"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In her first days on the job, L.A. Unified's new Superintendent Michelle King suggested that single-sex education might attract more families to the district and improve student achievement. She wouldn't be the first district leader to vest hope - not to mention public funds - in all-boys and all-girls schools. But LAUSD should be wary of segregating its students by sex.

The notion of boys' and girls' schools conjures rosy images of elite private institutions, but the history of single-sex education in the United States is rife with misguided prejudice. In the 1870s, retired Harvard professor Edward H. Clarke ignited popular interest in single-sex education - by arguing that exposing adolescent girls to the rigors of a standard education would cause their reproductive organs to wither. In the 1950s, after racial segregation was declared unconstitutional, sex-segregated public schools were created across the South to keep boys and girls of different racial backgrounds apart.

Yes, there are some terrific boys-only and girls-only public schools out there. But are they great schools because they are single-sex?

Today, in a major reversal, single-sex education has found political champions among supporters of gender equality and those who believe that black and Latino boys in particular will benefit from being educated apart from their female peers. In 2001, then-Sen. Hilary Clinton co-sponsored a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act that provided federal funds to fledgling single-sex public schools, spurring local school districts across the country to experiment with sex segregation.

A few years later, however, a government-commissioned study noted a lack evidence proving that single-sex education improved student performance. The Bush administration decided to press forward anyway, and in 2006 issued guidelines signaling it wouldn't go after single-sex public schools for violating laws against sex discrimination in education. Today, there are nearly 80 single-sex public schools in the U.S., up from just a handful three decades ago. Hundreds more schools separate boys and girls during academic instruction, though the campuses are technically coed.

So, how's it going?

Supporters point to a few carefully chosen examples to prove single-sex education raises test scores and boosts students' confidence. But the larger story is the overwhelming number of single-sex public school programs that haven't produced any positive results. In 2014, researchers Erin Pahlke, Janet Shibley Hyde, and Carlie M. Allison published a meta-analysis of existing studies on single-sex instruction. Their exhaustive review found no significant advantage, for boys or girls, over coeducation.

Yes, there are some terrific boys-only and girls-only public schools out there. But are they great schools because they are single-sex? The evidence suggests not. Research shows that successful schools do certain things - such as creating strong mentoring relationships and keeping class sizes to a manageable level - that benefit students whether boys and girls learn together or apart.

Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that single-sex education can do real harm by perpetuating limiting gender stereotypes. In single-sex schools across the country, girls' classrooms are decorated in pastels while boys are surrounded by bold colors; girls are assigned to read romantic fiction, while boys are given non-fiction books; boys are subjected to frequent drills and timed tests, while girls are assigned group work and non-competitive activities - and on and on.

These "gender-sensitive" teaching methods sometimes are dressed up in the legitimating jargon of neuroscience, but the popular notion that boys and girls are "hard-wired" to learn differently rests on gross generalizations about sex differences in the brain. Today, much of the so-called "science" of sex difference has been debunked, but that hasn't kept public schools from modeling programs on bogus theories. As a result, boys are being deprived of the opportunity to develop crucial social skills, such as working collaboratively and thinking creatively, while girls are being denied the opportunity to build test-taking skills and learn how to succeed under pressure.

Past mistakes don't prove that single-sex schools can never work in public education in the future. But unless LAUSD takes a critical look at the facts and research on single-sex education, it hardly can be expected to do any better moving forward.
Juliet A. Williams is a professor in the UCLA Department of Gender Studies, and the author of the forthcoming "The Separation Solution: Single-Sex Public Education and the New Politics of Gender Equality." Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

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What's wrong with single-sex schools? A lot.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In her first days on the job, L.A. Unified's new Superintendent Michelle King suggested that single-sex education might attract more families to the district and improve student achievement. She wouldn't be the first district leader to vest hope - not to mention public funds - in all-boys and all-girls schools.

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From the age of 11, students at same-sex schools are exposed to an environment prone to misunderstanding and discrimination, since it’s the most stereotypical aspects of each sex that breed and take over.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At the most basic level, segregation is wrong

Why is there so much prestige associated with a single sex school? The education might be good, and on paper it might be difficult to fault certain grammar or private schools in terms of quality of teaching, but there are far more important social issues that a same-sex education actively promotes.

I loved going to my all-girl school, but it wasn't until I left that I realised how certain things that seemed totally normal at the time could have turned out to be quite damaging. Being grateful there weren't boys there to distract us was something we were fed, not something we had learned ourselves.

It's not that I didn't kn ow how to communicate with boys or that it wasn't possible to socialise outside of school, but by dividing people based on gender it becomes easy to see the opposite sex as the other, especially at the lower key stages.

From the age of 11, students at same-sex schools are exposed to an environment prone to misunderstanding and discrimination, since it's the most stereotypical aspects of each sex that breed and take over.

My school definitely created a competitive environment, but not always based on grades. Having the smallest lunch brought with it an element of kudos.

Dieting became a trend to the extent that one of my friends used to eat an apple and drink a diet cola for lunch - the apple for calories and the cola to expand in your stomach to kid yourself into feeling full. I counted out six cashew nuts each day to make sure I wasn't eating too much fat.

This might be the same in a mixed school, but I can't see how it can't be worse in such a small bubble where you can only compare yourself to other girls. Being pleased you don't have to wear make-up to class because there aren't boys there is not progressive, it's the opposite.

Cerys Liddiard, now a student at Sheffield, said: "My girls' school shared a field with the boys' school and there was an invisible line down the middle which dinner ladies patrolled, and if you were seen socialising with the other sex you were told off and made to move."

Of course you can still really enjoy your time at a single sex school, but segregating people based on gender is old-fashioned and unnecessary.

A friend who went to Latymer Upper School, told me: "The worst thing was girls arriving for sixth form, totally ruined it," proves how being split into the sexes promotes and encourages differences between them. Especially when I knew people who hated moving to the boys' school near me for Sixth Form because they were picked on so badly.

The girls I went to school with were great and the education was fantastic, but I can't help feeling slightly sad about some of the ideas that were able to generate there. If you're going to wait outside the school gates for the opposite sex to walk past anyway, you may as well be learning with them.

Your school might not have made you a bigot and you might not worry about talking about your period in public, but the single-sex school still creates issues that can continue until you are sat at a pub table in your 20s with boys on one side and girls on the other.

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At the most basic level, segregation is wrong Why is there so much prestige associated with a single sex school? The education might be good, and on paper it might be difficult to fault certain grammar or private schools in terms of quality of teaching, but there are far more important social issues that a same-sex education actively promotes.

# data[].attributes.body
in 2007, Jefferson Leadership Academies reversed its same-sex curriculum after issues with disappointing test scores and scheduling conflicts arose. Detractors of same-sex classrooms weren’t surprised since one of the biggest challenges to single-sex classrooms is the lack of concrete evidence that they boost achievement. As Margaret Talbot wrote in her 2012 New Yorker piece, “The evidence wasn’t very good then [the ’90s] for a gap between the genders’ learning styles so significant that it would mandate separate instruction, and it hasn’t gotten any better.”

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Imagine a typical school classroom and you may conjure up images of boys and girls coexisting, learning alongside each other, raising their hands in equal numbers. However, that's not usually the case.

According to 2010 data from NCES and the U.S. Census Bureau, from prekindergarten to senior year of high school, male students outnumber female students significantly in public school classrooms: 54 percent to 46 percent in pre-K and 51 percent to 49 percent from first grade to 12th grade.

So with the disproportionate stats in the American classroom, is it beneficial to separate the sexes from each other? Much debate has centered around this topic for years.

The Case for Single-Gender Classrooms

Jefferson Leadership Academies was in the spotlight in 1999 when it became the first public middle school in the United States to have entirely single-gender classes. Its reason? Research showed that girls did better in math and science in all-girl settings. This decision came just a few years after Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls - a book that argues that gender bias prevents girls from receiving education equal to that of their male counterparts - was published by two American University professors.

Of course, single-gender education in grade schools didn't start in 1999, as it existed in the 18th century before coeducation started to trend in the 19th century. However, it picked up steam in the late '90s, especially when the Supreme Court made a ruling in the United States v. Virginia case involving male-only military college Virginia Military Institute. The conclusion: Single-sex classrooms were only constitutional if comparable resources were available to both genders. In 2006, the No Child Left Behind Act added a provision giving single-sex classrooms and schools the ability to exist as long as they are voluntary. From 1995 to 2006, the number of single-sex schools in the United States rose from 3 to 241.

There are many reasons why people advocate for single-gender classrooms, including less distraction (especially during teenage years when hormones rage), less " gender intensification " where coed settings reinforce stereotypes, and more instruction tailored to the unique ways boys and girls learn.
Approximately 30% of Catholic high schools in America are single-sex. See why you might consider a Catholic school, even if you're not Catholic.

The Case Against Single-Gender Classrooms

In 2007, Jefferson Leadership Academies reversed its same-sex curriculum after issues with disappointing test scores and scheduling conflicts arose. Detractors of same-sex classrooms weren't surprised since one of the biggest challenges to single-sex classrooms is the lack of concrete evidence that they boost achievement. As Margaret Talbot wrote in her 2012 New Yorker piece, "The evidence wasn't very good then [the '90s] for a gap between the genders' learning styles so significant that it would mandate separate instruction, and it hasn't gotten any better."

Plus, another argument against single-gender schools is that the real world doesn't afford a society where students can work with or interact with one gender over another. Thus, when it comes time for these students to head into the workforce, or even to college, they will face an adjustment period.

Related to college, one of the biggest reasons why single-gender classes popped up in the '90s was to help women do better in the classroom, but recent statistics show that women attend college in larger numbers, outnumbering men by 14 percent.

In fact, girls are less likely than boys to be held back in American schools, too, so some argue that the effort put into helping girls in the classroom may be counterintuitive when the boys are the ones who aren't doing as well.

Pros and Cons of Single-Sex Education

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Imagine a typical school classroom and you may conjure up images of boys and girls coexisting, learning alongside each other, raising their hands in equal numbers. However, that's not usually the case. According to 2010 data from NCES and the U.S.