What is the feminist view on single sex education?

Whenever people talk about "feminisation of education" they usually have an axe to grind.

Someone further up mentioned teachers thinking that way, the phrase 'feminisation of education' may have been used.

I think my school had the best of both; it was an all girls grammar 'twinned' with the boys' equivalent down the road, so things like plays, music, debating society etc were done jointly. The year after I left some A-level classes were being mixed, so girls could use the boys' engineering lab (ours was in a demountable... though school has since got science special status and improved a lot of facilities).

Also, being a grammar school about 75% of us came from out of town so we socialised on the school bus as well - and for me that was 45 minutes aech way, quite enough time to get to know how boys worked! I think that's probably the ideal, in that classes were girls only so I never felt any need to be quietened down, but the more 'real life' activities were mixed.

Thing is you're not separating them because of different learning styles, I wouldn't expect them to be taught any differently. I'm not sure that anyone talks about boys learning one way and girls another, outside of people upset about the exam results starting to go the way of girls.

The reason they are being separated is because the presence of males can subconsciously impact on the behaviour of the teacher, and the behaviour of the girls.

If you are going to separate boys and girls for lessons you will have to watch out for the teachers who believe that "girls learn in one way and boys learn in another" rather than thinking that individuals learn in different ways. God forbid you are a girl whose learning style better matches that which is prescribed for boys, or vice versa. At least in a mixed class even those with very strong belief in boys and girls being different will be expecting there to be more than one type of learner in the class.

I wonder if a mix is best. Attend school together and do lessons separately or something. Working on the basis that it is obviously impossible to ensure that all girls have single-sex education and all boys co-ed. But that girls do generally seem to do "better" in a single sex environment.

That's interesting abut friendships. The only really damaging experience I feel I had from school was in my co-ed primary school where in infants all my friends were boys, but when we moved to juniors there was suddenly a big division and the boys and girls didn't mix at all (not sure why, it wasn't a structural thing). I found trying to be friends with the girls very very difficult and was effectively ostracized.

Then I went to an all girls school, and then to a boys school with girls sixth form. I didn't make firm friends at either school and always felt a bit of an outsider, although generally found being friends with the boys much easier. I was always fairly dominant in class but I don't think that was an effect of being empowered by going to a girls school, more of being quite unhappy, the youngest in a large family and my character too (ds is very similar). I didn't really figure out how to be comfortable in my own skin and make proper friendships until university.

I'd certainly fight sexism for my dd, but I wouldn't assume that she wouldn't find it in a girls school too.

There is a lot to be mulled around on this one.

I started off at all-girls' schools and was really not at all a success - I was not a natural conformist: everything from my unruly curiosity in class to my unruly hair was somehow a Problem that I had Talkings To about.

Then, when I was about 13, my girls' school joined up with its brother school, and just about overnight my school experience was transformed. The boys' school took it for simple granted that there would be a big range of behaviour and personality and learning style, and welcomed and even clearly enjoyed curiosity & wild hair & left-field-ness. So I could not be more glad that my schooling ended up co-ed ... but the real point is, that was for me - one particular female individual whose needs were not for a safe place where I could develop confidence in peace but for an arena with big wide accepting horizons.

So the upshot is, individuals (inc. female individuals).

The important follow-on is that, with my early schooling experiences, I deliberately started my two (one boy, one girl) off in co-ed - but within three years, we moved them both to single-sex - because what they turned out to need & be happy in was the direct opposite to how I was!

PS the boys probably were a bit distracting socially - I think it is likely I would have had more & closer girlfriends from school if it was girls' only - but agree with Fennel & MI that having boy-peers as part of a ongoing prosaic largely banal community meant you (and everyone) got perfectly good at spotting the prats.

I don't see how you can be better prepared to deal with prejudice and sexism, if you are in an environment where sexism is rife and accepted and unchallenged and you are told that that is simply th e way life is and finding it outrageous is you being a bit tiresome teenage drama queeny.

Which clearly is the case in many co-ed schools. ( I'm not saying ALL co-ed schools are hotbeds of reactionary sexism, but a hell of a lot obviously are, otherwise you wouldn't have this figure of 1 in 3 teenage girls experiencing sexual assault by fellow pupils in school.)

Quite, MI. there is a lot of pleasure to be had in beating the boys.

MillyR - "The later you experience prejudice, discrimination and harassment the better. Experiencing those things in childhood or adolescence is much more damaging in the long term than doing so in adulthood when you have more resilience." I was in co-educational establishments from 12 to 30 and never encountered prejudice, discrimination or harassment in any school or university I attended. Work, however, was a whole other field to navigate and in many ways I might have been a bit better equipped had I had more experience to deal with it!

I am not a fan of either single sex or rigorously co-educational education. Both are flawed - life is neither single sex nor rigorously mixed sex. Both girls and boys need time in "girls only" and "boys only" environments as well as being together and I wish there were more schools where a boys school and a girls school lived alongside each other and mixed for certain subjects and not for others.

I quite liked demonstrating that I was better than most of the boys at most subjects too, it must be said

there should be no segregation within schools at all

maybe some lessons separate but not complete schools, think it's a bit grim to separate based on religion as well, we all live in the same world

One reason for sending girls to co-ed schools is because they might like the company of boys. My 11yo is as friendly with the boys in her (primary, yr6) class as with the girls, in fact this year she spends more time with the boys, she has always had a lot in common with them and less in common with the average girl her age. I would be very reluctant to send her to a single sex secondary, I think she could find that rather hard.

I also quite liked having boys as friends and classmates at school. I may be a feminist but I like having men as friends (as well as women). I'm not that unusual in that.

Actually, I am probably going to send my girls to an all-girls' comp...but that is because it's the school I like best that's on offer locally. I would prefer mixed. I feel having blokes around all the time demystifies them. And I think my daughters are up to coping with them, really, too.

As others have said, from a selfish perspective I would send DD to a single sex school and DS to a co-ed school. In reality they both go to co-ed schools because that is what is available.

If I had to set up a system to benefit everyone, rather than just my children, I would make all schools single sex. I don't think there is much difference for boys between co-ed and single sex, but there is a big difference for girls.

I don't see any benefit to sending girls to a co-ed school just because the adult word is co-ed. The later you experience prejudice, discrimination and harassment the better. Experiencing those things in childhood or adolescence is much more damaging in the long term than doing so in adulthood when you have more resilience.

Oh and one last point and then I'll shut up for a bit (only a bit mind ):

"nearly everywhere girls and women go, the world is designed for men by men and we are there on sufference and every single adjustment we make to the space to try and make it equally ours, is met by cries of "oh look, feminist fascists have taken over, they're trying to change the workplace/ education system/ political system so that they can do down men!" That is why female only spaces are valuable - they're already designed for girls/ women and they don't have to fight to get them adusted to their needs.

And I'm always suspicious of the argument that says: "oh things used to be like this in the old days, but it's not like that anymore". It just sounds like a variation on the "you're all equal now, what are you complaining about" POV"

This too:

"how to explain a recent survey which found that 1 in 3 secondary school girls have been sexually assaulted at school and over three quarters have witnessed or been subject to sexual bullying?

Girls are regularly called names like slut, whore etc. almost daily and very little is done about it, whereas racial abuse has to be reported to the LEA. Over a quarter claim to have seen porn on mobile phones in school and 25% also claim that their teachers never said unwanted sexual touching, sharing of sexual pictures or sexual name calling are unacceptable.

Given those findings by a large and reputable research survey (YouGov), which used a properly weighted and robust sample group, I don't have any faith in the equal ops policies of all schools. I acknowledge that some schools may have effective anti-sexual bullying policies, but if nearly 1 in 3 girls are actaully being assaulted in school, then that's a massive problem IMO."

And this:

I'm also a bit sceptical about the argument that life is mixed so girls should be prepared for it. Life's sexist, racist, unfair, sad, brutish and short as well, but the best defence against that is to protect children from that and give them the confidence and self-esteem to deal with it. I think an all girls' school where the pupils are not being exposed to sexual harassment on a regular basis, can help give girls the confidence to not accept sexism and unfairness as the norm.

This is something I posted on a thread about single sex schools for girls back in January, can't be bothered to re-think my thoughts.

The massive benefit of my single sex school, was that it put us, the girls, at the centre of everything. For the only time in the life of most females, everything is geared towards their needs and their education and they are not expected to behave in response or opposition or complement, to boys and men. They are just themselves. So they come out of school expecting to be treated as full human beings rather than adjuncts to men. That to me, is the real benefit of a girl's school, not the A level results.

I get Trillian's arguments, but I think atm we're not at a stage where we can afford to give away one area where girls are central. Girl's schools, like mumsnet, are an oasis of female-centred society in a society which is usually all about men. I'd be reluctant to relinquish those spaces.

It isn't "established" that girls do better in single sex education. Some studies have shown it, and some haven't. Alan Smithers study on this suggested there wasn't a difference.
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/jun/25/schools.gender

I went to a mixed sex comp and I did like the way it made boys an everyday part of life, people you competed against , got used to, warts and all. Not something you needed shielding from. I want my daughters to view boys like that too, people who are their friends and equals, not something they aren't up to dealing with.