Gender segregating public schools does not work

I’ve been to a school where segregated classes were suggested – to the students. We unanimously rejected it, by the way. I don’t think it even has anything to do with learning gender equality; lacking that kind of inter-gender interaction would be unhealthy in all sorts of ways, but most of all it’s no fun.

I sympathize. The learning environment advocated for boys would’ve been hell for me.

I on the other hand was a very quiet boy who did well and enjoyed lectures. Though I did like asking questions (of the teacher). I hated and never learned as much from group work, esp. if I was stuck with a bunch of rowdy boys who spent more time playing grab-ass than working on the assignment.

Strangely, I usually chose math and science classes but I think that had more to do with the fact that the English and language teachers I had seemed to teach through osomosis.

I can see the logic here, but I have to wonder if ‘protecting’ the girls while they develop is really going to help any. At the end of school they’ll be thrown into interacting with a bunch of boys who have the whole culture telling them that girls only observe, AND have had no OTHER experience of girls.

Even if it’s a bit harder for girls to learn to participate with boys present, my opinion is that it ultimately prepares them for life better.

Well, mine was a college, and very few of us came from single sex high schools (and so were already used to dealing with male peers), so they didn’t do a whole lot to formally address that issue. Unless you count encouraging students to study abroad or to take classes at nearby colleges as well. I really do think they could and should have done much more, but I also think – for my school at least – the lack of preparation for sexism in the workplace was mostly to do with it being an snobby liberal arts school that didn’t offer a lot of job prep resources to begin with.

I definitely went through a period after graduating where I felt very disoriented and had a hard time gaining back the confidence I’d achieved in college. At the same time, most of that was simply reverting back to what I had been like in high school. So while I do wish my school had done a better job helping me with that, I don’t think that going to a co-ed college would have been better for me. Going to Mount Holyoke gave me all kinds of opportunities to see what I was capable of that another larger and co-ed (and less academically oriented) school would have never been able to do. While I’ve had some definite setbacks, a lot of my belief in my ability to overcome them has come from the faith my classmates and professors had in me and other similar memories of being valued at MHC.

All in all, going to MHC was one of the best choices I’ve ever made and one that I have never regretted.

That said, I agree with Mel that single sex education is not something that I would force on anyone. I, personally, also very much disagree with single sex education in public schools. I think it’s rarely done for the right reasons and is pretty much impossible to implement properly even when it is.

As a high-school student currently in her senior (and eighth) year at a girls’ school, I have to disagree with the idea that single-sex education is inherently damaging. I’ve found that my experience has been overwhelmingly positive– at least at my particular school, the lack of boys has resulted in a much relaxed social atmosphere and a greater focus on academics. When I first began attending my school, I literally never talked in class. (For the record, I was coming from a “progressive” Montessori school, too. I went to a really twisted one, though, so I don’t want to generalize– there were some teachers that really should not have been around children working there.) At this point I’m pretty confident in my ability to coherently express and defend my ideas in a public forum. It’s held up when I’ve left my school’s “bubble,” too– it’s not like suddenly being around dudes undoes eight years of reassurance that my opinions count. Also, my school has one of the best debate teams in the state, competing quite successfully against much larger co-ed schools, too!

That said, I think that single-sex education is not as good for boys as it is for girls. Some boys’ schools do it better than others, but my personal experience of our “brother” school is that the lack of females allows the stereotypes apparent in the general culture to fester and become concentrated. My very-feminist English teacher’s husband teaches over there, and she says that he often expresses surprise to her at how all of his students assume that men are inherently superior. I think part of this may have to do with the fact that the school is really very brutal as a whole, but hey. The problem obviously has some root in the fact that many of the boys probably have very little casual contact with girls their age to offset the sex and stereotypes fed them by popular culture.

Also, to add to what Turelie Telcontar says– the parochial boys’ schools in my area seem to produce better-adjusted guys than do the independent ones. Food for thought.

Well, to be fair, she is attending a girl’s only school, so her education’s not as good.

(sorry, but that stupid joke was just too obvious to pass up on)

Well, what can I say? Men are just funny.

Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

Try the veal!

Oh, it’s so lying on my fingertips now… but I’ll be good.

In capitalist Australia, sub-tertiary education is a responsibility of the individual states and territories, and schools are divided between those which are run by government education departments and wholly funded by ‘public monies’ and those which are run by ‘private’ bodies, mainly religious, but also philosophical (eg Montessori ), but still receive a fair dose of government funding. ‘Government’ schools are co-educational (I dislike the term ‘co-ed’ when it refers only to female students, since it implies that women are ‘added-on’); ‘private’ schools may be, but, especially where they also espouse a particular religious ideology, are often gender-segregated.

As a communist, I oppose segregation of any type (and I would be disgusted to learn of any school that promoted segregated schooling to reinforce traditional gender roles — such schooling in the ‘public sector’ died a well-deserved death here in the 1960s), but as a teacher *in a capitalist society* I have my doubts. IMO — and I am a product of co-educational schooling — mixed-gender education might be seen to disadvantage boys (requiring them to be ‘docile note-takers’), but can just as readily be seen as disadvantaging girls. This occurs in several spheres, not all of which can be attributed to the system of social relations obtaining under capitalism.

Firstly, gender stereotyping often inhibits girls in co-educational schools from taking/showing interest in ‘masculine’ subjects, such as maths, physics, computer science or ‘craft’ (of course, it also inhibits boys in the same situation from ‘feminine’ subjects, such as languages or ‘art history’). In single-gendered environments, not only are girls more willing to try subjects that their cultural milieu says are not ‘appropriate’ for their gender, but they can learn without the judgment, teasing and competition of boys and they often achieve better results than their peers in co-educational environments.

Secondly, girls in gender-segregated schools are exposed to more successful female role models. The top students in all academic subjects, and the leaders in sport and extra-curricular activities are female, as are most teachers and administrators. Furthermore, female ‘heroes ’are often objects of respect in ways that they are not either in co-educational schools or in the wider society. Because of this and because the ‘noise’ of misogynistic ideology doesn’t reach into their school environment, adolescent girls often feel better about themselves in many ways (their bodies and body image, for example, as well as about their academic abilities) when they are educated in girls-only schools as opposed to co-educational schools . By promoting self-esteem, gender-segregated schools may better equip girls to fight for their human rights in gender-biased male-dominated societies.

Thirdly, the classroom dynamics of the co-educational school are often very hostile to girls. Just as girls are socialized to be ‘docile’ and ‘obedient,’ boys are socialized to be ‘aggressive’ and ‘pushy’ (note that I didn’t say ‘assertive’ — deliberately). And, despite the neanderthals of the ‘Men’s Movement’ who claim that “listening respectfully to the teacher and taking notes” renders the traditional classroom threatening to boys, most teachers know that this is not the way things work. In co-educational classrooms the boys will often be the ones who raise their hands or call out to answer questions (or simply to gain attention) and will sometimes be quite insistent in doing so. Many teachers will simply give in to this dynamic — male teachers because it is ‘natural’ to them, and female teachers because it “makes life easier.” Either way, girls are silenced. In addition, teachers (especially male ones) will often allow girls less time to formulate or express their answers, thus suggesting to them that they are less capable than boys.

Another aspect of this is that — straight — adolescent girls in co-educational schools are often more concerned with being amenable to boys than with the subjects they are supposed to be studying (yes, adolescent boys are similarly becoming interested in girls, but they are not socialized to defer to them in the same way that girls are socialized to ‘go along with’ boys). In my experience, girls in gender-segregated classrooms are engaged in *learning* more of the time, show more co-operative behaviour and identify better with their female classmates than when they are in co-educational classes.

Furthermore, girls in co-educational situations can be subject to harassment, intimidation, embarrassment, verbal abuse, bullying and even physical and sexual violence not only from males but also from other girls ‘competing’ for male attention. This can build up and destroy girls’ ability to concentrate and their joy of coming to school. IMO, such behaviours are much reduced in girls’ schools staffed with female teachers.

I hear your argument that co-education aids in ‘socialization’ or ‘teaching members of both genders to work together.’ Sure, socialization is necessary and wonderful, but, if you claim to be a Marxist, then you will know that people are socialized in ways that benefit the ruling class — under capitalism conformity is enforced (usually in the Anglosphere dressed up as consensus and the avoidance of ‘hostility), obedience to authority is enjoined, individual competiveness is enthroned as the ultimate virtue … and boys and girls are indoctrinated into patterns of aggressive and conciliatory behaviour respectively. If you are not a Marxist, you will doubtless regard the sometimes comical and sometimes tragic behaviour of adolescent males and adolescent females in mixed settings as ‘natural.’ Under either paradigm, girls ‘learn’ to take the back seat, or risk the consequences.

There is nothing sadder, IMO, than seeing a girl who, at 9 or 10, is a strong and competent woman-in-the-making and has good friendships with her ‘sisters,’ suddenly, at 12 – 16, becoming a passive admirer of male tomfoolery, because she knows that (most) adolescent males have no time for strong and competent women — or a hyper-competitive ‘bitch,’ dumping on other women, because she knows that (many) boys and men go into absolute toxic meltdown when they think that women are “banding together” against them, and that competing for male ‘favour’ is a way to ‘stay alive’ socially, and often physically too

Finally, and this is a subject rarely raised, co-educational schools can be testing for female *teachers* as well as female students — there will always be a certain number of boys who will never accept a female teacher, and are prepared to ruin everybody’s educational experience in order to assert ‘male superiority’ (usually, this is code for their intention to set themselves up as leader of the pack). Where such behaviour is endorsed by the male student’s socio-economic or cultural base — (some) boys learn from a very early age that is their ‘role’ to ‘control’ women — or is tolerated or ignored by the school administration, it can lead to the loss of female teachers, who simply ‘drop-out’ out of fear or frustration … and the ‘rescue’ of the female teacher by *male* administrators often merely reinforces the sexist assumptions of students of both genders.

Note that I am not denying that most of these problems are exacerbated by capitalist social relations, and will be attenuated by capitalism’s overthrow — I am merely pointing out that, even after the Revolution, there will need to be protracted effort (‘a leap in social consciousness’) to ensure equal educational opportunities for both genders.

Footnote — ‘Research’ in matters sociological can be skewed by a myriad of factors, not least by the tendency of researchers to choose their target groups, frame their questions and interpret the responses they get so that their original assumptions are confirmed.
Moreover the same researchers can produce different results at different times — witness the ever-shifting debate between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture.’ Or the same research can be ‘spun’ to produce different results — the AAUW (American Association of University Women) reports that argued that girls are better off in single-gender schools were spun in press releases to read the opposite. This merely reflects the fact that ‘research’ is usually tailored to larger socio-economic currents.