Coeducation

Checking Out the Coeds:

An Evaluation of Sex-Segregated Versus Integrated Instruction

Sunil Santoni-de-Reddy

April 2006

The most important job responsibility any teacher has is ensuring that students are schooled in an environment that promotes learning. Effective teaching is a challenge because learners are not all alike. Teachers need to be skilled in how to best reach out to each individual student and recognize learner differences. Diversity in the classroom with respect to race and culture, socioeconomic status, and special needs necessitate that teachers develop a strong knowledge base of learners and learning. One of the most important of the learner differences is gender; since the K-12 student population is equally made up of males and females it is important to consider how, if at all, each sex is influenced in school by their counterpart or how being classified as one sex benefits or detracts from the individual’s learning experience.

Since the inception of schooling there have always been developments in who gets to receive a formal education. Whereas in the past only men were afforded the right to education, rightly so women soon entered schools, perhaps at first segregated from their male peers. Although today most schools are integrated, there still exist many single-sex institutions around the globe. The question arises: which environment—single-sex or coeducational institutions—are more conducive to pupil learning for one or both of the sexes? In the present day context there is greater pressure on students to excel in school and compete with peers from around the world; emphasis in the field of education—and fueled by politics—is placed on achievement testing and the critique of student test scores. The comparison of test scores between the sexes has recently led to the male student body being classified as “underachieving” or “underperforming.” As it is such, sociologists and educational researchers are analyzing the structure of schools. Do boys benefit from segregated instruction? How are girls benefited or hindered matriculating at single-sex schools? Last, is it necessary to completely abolish the coeducation system if it is shown that learning is better promoted in segregated environments? These and other similar questions will be the focus of this discussion.

Younger and Warrington (2002), in their analysis of coeducation, detail how sex-segregated learning offers greater rewards to female students, but that male students typically benefit from a coeducational experience. The article focuses on single-sex groupings of ninth and tenth graders in a mixed comprehensive school in England. Most of the researchers’ observations were made in single-sexed and mixed mathematics and geography classes. The authors first indicate why they believe single-sex schooling has become a hot topic: “girls are registering higher levels of performance at GCSE than are boys, and over the last two years this has been so in all the core subjects and in geography and modern foreign languages” (p. 355). The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is a British standardized test but a similar disparity in test scores in the United States is also marking American boys as “underachieving.” One of the arguments for single-sex instruction is that it limits distractions to both sexes, thereby allowing the students to focus more of their energy on learning. The authors acknowledge that perhaps male test scores would increase if they were to be segregated from the girls; this is the question they attempt to find an answer for.

Of the single-sex and mixed-sex classes the authors observed inequalities in the way girls and boys were treated by their teachers. Teachers generally questioned male students more frequently than the female students when classes were segregated, no matter the subject being observed. In the mixed geography classes girls were questioned twice as much as their male colleagues whereas in math classes boys were usually given 25% more attention than the girls. The authors critique the popular notions that boys are better suited to math and science than are girls. It is also significant that boys and girls engaged in asking for help from their teachers equally in their respective segregated classes, however in the mixed geography classes girls called for teacher assistance twice as much as the boys (p. 362).

The treatment of boys and girls from the teachers also differed in how often students were given positive and negative feedback. As the researchers found, “boys’ classes were characterized by more reprimands being given than praise, and girls usually received more praise than reprimands,” however in mixed-sex classes there were higher levels of praise given to boys and girls (p. 364). Additionally, there were differences in the way the segregated classes were organized. In the male-only classes, lessons were more structured than the girls’ classes and these lessons were driven with greater volumes of activity and lasted shorter intervals with high concentrations of work implemented in each activity. Whereas the girls “appeared to be self-motivated and able to sustain the momentum of their own learning, boys needed more direction, more persuasion and more encouragement” from their teachers (p. 364). Thus, one can see that there is a difference in the needs of boys and girls in the learning environment and advocates of single-sex education point to this truth in their argument.

One other possibility as to why boys often score lower than girls in mixed classes is that teacher expectations of boys in comparison to girls is sometimes lower. The authors indicate that in mixed-sex classes girls often participated more than the boys and received positive feedback from their teachers for participating. The authors write: “there was some evidence, perhaps based on experience, that the teacher had lower expectations of the boys, responding to their responses with occasional surprise and some gentle humor, especially if correct answers had been offered” (p. 365). Instead of encouraging male students in integrated classes, teachers, the writers suggest, “accept male cooperation rather than male participation” (p. 369). With this in mind, in single-sex classes the expectations of teachers for students would be equalized and perhaps, then, male

students would not be dissuaded from being active contributors.

Many female students are proponents of single-sex learning because, as the researchers acknowledge, the girls feel they are supported by their peers in the classroom, can participate without feeling embarrassed, and can “be themselves” without feeling self-conscious. While the above examples represent segregated learning as providing greater opportunities for each sex, the authors believe that ultimately boys learn better in heterogeneous classes. Boys who were interviewed in the school admitted that they felt less supported in the classroom without the presence of females. Additionally, all-male classes were observed to overly reward “macho-behavior,” and boys in these classes were not challenged when engaging in sexist conversations (p. 367). Boy classes were also cited as being difficult to manage because of a higher level of acting-out and increased noise level in comparison to female-only or mixed-sex classes (p. 366).

While the authors admit that classroom environments most effectively contribute to the learning process when boys and girls are separated, they do not believe that there is conclusive evidence that shows achievement is improved in these segregated classes or schools. An evaluation of GCSE test scores over a three-year period from 1988-1990 showed that in sex-segregated classes within mixed-institutions the amount of exceptional scores for boys increased from 34.7% to 59% and the girls similarly showed an increase from 39.9% to 68% (p. 356). This data has led many people to believe that segregated learning is responsible for these increases. However, the authors warn readers not to jump to these conclusions too quickly. Younger and Warrington illustrate that male average scores increased 70% and those of females similarly increased 70.4%, revealing a shrinking achievement gap; the authors identify a problem in the over-valuing of this evidence as a sign of necessitating sex-segregated learning. The researchers admit that sex-segregated learning programs are infrequent and that many of the classes visited took place on an “ad hoc basis, perhaps for just one school term or year, and sometimes expanded or discontinued without proper evaluation of the outcomes” (p. 354). In this light, there have not been enough longitudinal studies to attribute higher test achievement with segregated learning.

Van de gaer, Pustjens, Van Damme, and De Munter (2004) similarly convey that there are many benefits to single-sex instruction. However, the authors emphasize that it is better to institute single-sex classes rather than segregated schools because while boys may benefit from all-male learning in language classes and girls in female-only math classes, ultimately data does not illustrate that there is a significant difference in the achievement levels of either sex when they are in other mixed-sex classes. Like the previously discussed authors, the focus on single-sex schooling research is largely being based on the underachievement of boys on public examinations.

In order to evaluate the success of segregated instruction the authors visited and observed single-sex classes in both single-sex and co-educational Dutch schools. They base their findings on comparisons between achievement scores for boys and girls on language and mathematics tests between the students’ freshman and sophomore years in the secondary schools. Of the classes observed, 77% of the single-sex Dutch language classes and 61% of the single-sex math classes were in single-sex schools (p. 314). The researchers classified a single-sex class as one with more than 80% of one or the other sex, and mixed-sex classes were identified as those with an attendance of 20%-80%. Thus, if 30% of a class was made up of females then the class was labeled mixed in this research (p. 312).

The authors first explain why single-sex instruction is believed to be advantageous to

learning before they discuss their findings; in this piece greater emphasis is placed on advantages

to females. The authors outline some of the benefits to female-only class learning:

Girls achieve better, have more confidence, are more interested and their participation in

“typical male” subjects like mathematics and sciences is higher in single-sex schools […]

Moreover, in single-sex schools girls are believed to be less discriminated. In co-

educational schools, for instance, boys dominate the classroom interactions and are more

frequently rewarded for active thinking (p. 309).

We are again shown that female-only instruction encourages girls to actively participate in math and science classes that they ordinarily may not be motivated in because of the stereotype associated with these courses as being for boys or used for “male professions.” The girls are also said to receive greater attention in female-only classes and feel more confident in learning apart from their male counterparts. The authors confess that there is great ambivalence when it comes to critiquing male-only instruction. They indicate that past research in the field has shown that co-education serves boys better, others say single-sex schools offer greater advantages, and still others identify no significant measurable differences (p. 309).

When analyzing achievement scores, the authors found that the girls generally did not perform any differently in single-sex or mixed-sex classes for either language or math. The authors acknowledge that in single-sex schools girls performed slightly higher on achievement tests than females in mixed schools but they cite recruitment of higher socioeconomic status female students as a reason for this greater standing. The boys similarly received the same marks in math in both settings, however in language classes the boys performed better when they were in mixed-sex classes. This last finding is important because it serves as evidence that segregating boys in order to “close the achievement gap” would not solve the problem. The researchers did not find any differences in achievement levels between either of the sexes in segregated institutions versus their co-education peers, leaving them to conclude that “the gender composition of the classes appeared to be more important than the gender composition of the schools. This also means that it does not matter whether single-sex classes are organized in single-sex or in co-educational schools” (p. 317-8).

As with the first article, we are presented with a warning about depending too much on variations in achievement levels between students in single-sex settings versus students in co-educational institutions or classes. The authors reveal that most of the past research done has been limited to one or two schools that have actually implemented single-sex instruction, but that even in these schools this only lasted for a “short period of time (one school term or one school year)” (p. 308). As stated in the previous paragraph, another possibility for the greater advantages that may be found of single-sex schools is that these schools “recruit from higher socio-economic backgrounds than co-educational schools, and pupils entering single-sex schools show higher initial performance” (p. 309). Thus, although critics may say that boys and girls are achieving more in all-male or all-female institutions, often it is the case that these students are performing better than their co-educational school peers because they have been afforded greater resources due to their family backgrounds.

Additionally, often single-sex institutions are private schools that can provide students with greater learning tools or aids because there is a greater wealth available. Most of the co-educational schools studied have been either governmental or public schools which may not be able to compete with private schools when it comes to providing quality instruction or resources to every student (p. 315). This also leads to an important consequence or problem on the given topic. Since public schools are not able to be single-sex institutions, if it is true that students benefit from segregated learning atmospheres, then public school students are kept at a disadvantage in the field of learning. However, I believe the authors do a good job at detailing how class composition is more important than the school composition in providing male and female students with greater opportunities to feel comfortable in their learning environments; the authors state that co-educational institutions are important for the full development of students as learners and people living in society, but simply that in these co-educational settings it might be best to have a couple classes be segregated with respect to sex.

After finding information about comparisons made in achievement levels to evaluate which type of learning environment may be best for students, I thought it was important to also find research detailing how the students perceive their learning environments to see if there is a greater social component hindering the students who may be placed in segregated classes or schools. Carolyn Jackson (2002) acknowledges in her study of students at Shady Acres, a co-educational school in England, that in all-male and all-female seventh-year math classes both sexes performed better than in classes with a mix of students (p. 38).

I found the student perceptions and responses to this style of learning math to be most interesting, especially because there are differences in the responses that girls and boys shared with the author on their questionnaires. The girls were largely in favor of being separated from the boys in math class: “eighty per cent of girls claimed to be more confident in single-sex classes than in mixed-sex classes, 65% indicating that single-sex classes helped their progress in mathematics” (p. 41). The girls reported that the underlying cause for their greater appreciation of female-only math classes was that in mixed-sex classes they were often made fun of by the boys and felt self-conscious when they answered incorrectly in class in front of their counterparts. Because of the positive experience of feeling supported in girl-only math classes, 80% of the female students reported wanting to continue learning in this setting in future school years. Jackson identifies the school as offering an “emotional self-defense for girls in as much as they offered temporary refuge from male harassment and abuse” (p. 43). The girls also expressed that the confidence they received in segregated math classes helped them feel more secure in their mixed classes. Eighty percent of the girls also indicated that they did not want their English classes to be segregated since, as one girl stated, “‘you sometimes need to work with opposite sex peers’” (p. 44). Thus, overall the female students surveyed were strong proponents of single-sex math classes but did not feel that co-education of all classes were necessary.

In contrast, the boys had more negative critiques of single-sex learning. The author finds that 59% of the boys surveyed did not believe there was any difference in their learning in the all-male versus mixed classes, 33% admitted that they felt more confident when they were in classes with females, and 72% acknowledged that they enjoyed mixed classes more than segregated classes. The boys are open with the author about why they rather be in classes with girls: “their less-than-enthusiastic views relating to single-sex classes seem to relate, in part, to their own misbehavior […] 31% of boys cited ‘fighting and roughness’ as one of the worst features of boys’ classes” (p. 42). Additionally, the author expresses that it is not uncommon in all-male classes for boys to engage in side conversation with same-sex peers rather than focusing on the class material, something that typically wouldn’t happen in mixed classes.

Last, in conjunction to the “roughness” mentioned above, in all-male classes sometimes a need to be macho or “demonstrate their own superior masculine qualities” through “pouncing on another boy’s weakness” is common (p. 45). Ultimately, then, boys think higher of co-educational classes because they feel greater support from their female peers and are given a greater chance of learning as opposed to being distracted by the wild antics or harassment from members of their own sex in all-male classes.

After delving into much of what the research above has to offer, I am left questioning whether there is concrete information to support one learning environment over another. It is difficult to assert an opinion when the research generally reveals that sometimes girls benefit from single-sex learning but that in these situations boys do not feel supported in their classes. I think the most compelling thing that I have learned is that co-education should not be abolished, especially since there is not enough long-lasting evidence to support that single-sex learning is always beneficial. Since it seems as though boys don’t experience positive or negative changes in math and science classes that are co-educational or not, and since most of the research does support the claim that girls feel at ease in female-only science based classes, I don’t think it is problematic that schools around the globe further test segregating instruction in these subjects. Due to the short duration of most of the single-sex learning programs I think it would be beneficial to experiment with increasing the length of the programs to arrive at more definitive conclusions about what the consequences are on achievement levels, if any at all.

Before completing the research my main concern with sex-segregated instruction was that it potentially limits aspects of socialization that I believe schools are partly yet directly responsible for. I did not see how segregating boys and girls would contribute to each individual’s social development. Additionally, I think that being surrounded by members of the opposite sex promotes the development of one’s own sense of self in the identification process. Although many of my friends attended all-boy or all-girl schools growing up and never seemed to have too much difficulty socializing with others, I still was not heavily invested in the idea of single-sex schooling. After doing some research on the topic I confess that I did not consider all of the existing alternatives. I can agree with some of the authors that perhaps reserving some classes for all-female or all-male instruction could be worthwhile, although admittedly I do not think this is necessary provided that the environment in mixed classes caters to each student’s individual learning needs.

Having attended sex-integrated schools throughout my entire student career, it is my personal belief that all students can benefit from the classroom if they are provided with the right learning tools. I believe that teachers have to be conscious of how much attention they are giving to boys over girls, what kinds of questions they ask to each sex, how their attitudes or preconceived notions about the effort one sex will put into work will influence their treatment of students, etc. If teachers assess their own practice through use of video or even self-reflection after classes, I believe that gender stereotyping could be avoided. I also believe that greater emphasis must be placed in schools on community building at an early age and maintained throughout a child’s schooling. One of the problems cited in mixed classes is that girls feel harassed by boys or are frequently marginalized. If all students respected each other and also were taught to respect learning in the general sense, then I do not believe that boys would harass girls as frequently, although I am sure mild teasing between the sexes would naturally occur.

I also believe that problems in mixed classes could be avoided if boys and girls were regularly encouraged to participate in activities together. It is a natural phenomenon that boys and girls generally select same-sex peer groups from middle childhood through adolescence. Perhaps parents are responsible during their child’s infancy in setting up play dates with other babies or small children of the same sex, but I think in later years social conventions as well as the student’s own tendency to spend time with others similar to themselves contributes to the gravitation that same sex peers have towards each other in forming friendship circles. In my experience, it is most evident during recess that segregation in school is a reality and one that can be modified.

While I do not believe that teachers, administrators or parents should force boys and girls to play together, I believe that all-encompassing activities during play or even occasional mixed working groups during class time should be encouraged because the expected result would be a greater sense of community which could help when it comes to learning to respect others during instruction time. In my observations, for example, students are free to sit wherever they chose which has resulted in a division in the class—boys sit on one side of the room and girls sit on the other—and I think this perpetuates the division in school while also not limiting distractions in class. In other classes that I have observed in the past, and using my own school experiences, when boys and girls are seated randomly in the classroom there are rarely any occurrences of boys attacking girls for giving a wrong answer, and most students do not appear to be frightened to participate because of what their same-sex peer next to them may think of them.

In conclusion, I believe that it could be beneficial for researchers in the field to engage in greater studies on the effects of single-sex versus co-educational learning on achievement and student attitudes. I believe more attention should be focused on understanding what else may be responsible for an achievement gap, if one exists, between boys and girls in school. I believe that gender stereotyping and a lack of proper community facilitation and general respect for others may also contribute to tensions in schools between boys and girls. Thus, it is the responsibility of teachers, parents, and students to attain greater knowledge of all learners and learning.

References

Jackson, C. (2002). Can single-sex classes in co-educational schools enhance the learning

experience of girls and/or boys? An exploration of pupils’ perceptions. British

Educational Research Journal, 28(1), 37-48.

Van de gaer, E., Pustjens, H., Van Damme, J., & De Munter, A. (2004). Effects of single-sex

versus co-educational classes and schools on gender differences in progress in language

and mathematics achievement. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(3), 307-322.

Younger, M., & Warrington, M. (2002). Single-sex teaching in a co-educational comprehensive

school in England: an evaluation based upon students’ performance and classroom

interactions. British Educational Research Journal, 28(3), 353-374.