single sex education : arguments in favour of?

[mumat39]

Sorry, I'm blatantly copying the heading from another (excellent) post.

Just wondering for those of you that chose this route, why you did?

Many Thanks in advance.

[Colleger]

Boys are made to feel academic, social and intellectual inferiors compared to girls in co-ed schools. It's not surprising then that they act the way they are viewed.

[teacherwith2kids]

As the mother of two children who are 'stereotypically gendered' in their interests (sport / ballet) but absolutely not so in their characters (desperately sensitive boy / completely uninterested in 'that horrible girly chatter' girl - to pick just one example) I would be unhappy about a single sex education for either of them.

I visited a single sex option for DS and was repelled .. thought it might be just me as a woman, so sent DS and DH along, they hated it too. It just wouldn't have fitted him as a person - he needs that wider variety of people around him to be able to be confident in show all aspects of his nature IYSWIM.

There is a single sex option for DD, too, which she and I will visit next year. It may well be that it is a better fit with her - it depends on the individual child and the individual school. At the moment she very much likes the ability she has to move freely through a variety of 'personas' [we call it the 'telephone box' trick - the moment she changes out of leotard and tights, takes her hair out of a bun, and screeches off round the corner to Cubs to run riot with 23 boys!] and we might feel that spending school time as well as much of her leisure time in an all girls' environment might limit that freedom.

[GrimmaTheNome]

Is this to do with school ethos or maybe when its all boys together those who don't take work so seriously are influenced by those that do. Probably both factors come into play.

I don't think there was anything amiss with that school's ethos - and conversely some of the mothers of boys complained they weren't sufficiently allowed to 'be boys'! (I suspect if DD had had the option of a mixed academically selective school she'd have found that fine TBH whatever her misgivings)

[cheapandchic]

I know this is not a scientific perspective but in my experience...

Every single one of my male friends that went to an all boys school (mostly boarding) are delinquent in dealing with women. In fact every male that I have met in London who has been to an all boys school has horrendous relationships with women, none are married or have steady partners and all are awkward around women either in relationships and/or work.

For this reason, even though it is hugely a generalisation, I would not send my son to an all boys school. Girls however I would consider.

[pianomama]

I am in a position to compare all-boys, all-girls and mixed - had DC's in all three The best academic achiever so far was DD who's been through mixed comprehensive . Just because I think she is more academically able. However, the school is much more then A-level results and having the choice, i would have preferred for her to go to all-girls just because I think it would have been a nice experience for her, less horrific makeup experiments, longer skirts, less hair dye disasters.. I am all for single-sex schools personally as they do take the pressure off growing children and let them concentrate more on who they are, not how they appear to the opposite sex.

[GrimmaTheNome]

C&C - apparently a large longitudinal study found that boys who had been to all-male schools had higher divorce rates.

My DH seems to have survived his all-boys school - he was probably fortunate to fall in with me early at uni and first of all become friends.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the type of teen who have difficulty with the opposite sex in a mixed school may to a large extent be the same types who have difficulty (of a different kind) with not having the opposite sex around in a single sex school.

[happygardening]

"Every single one of my male friends that went to an all boys school (mostly boarding) are delinquent in dealing with women. In fact every male that I have met in London who has been to an all boys school has horrendous relationships with women, none are married or have steady partners and all are awkward around women either in relationships and/or work."
This must be the largest generalisation of the century. Especially the underlined section!! I know plenty of men my DH included who have only been to all boys schools who have not only had "steady partners" they've even risen to the lofty heights of happy and long lasting marriages. Oh lets not forget they've managed to get on with the women they work with as well. I also know plenty of men who went to coed schools who have never formed satisfactory relationships or married disastrously and who are arrogant arses to work with as well.
If cheapandchic the only men you only know from single sex schools cant form satisfactory relationship with women then may I suggest you are change your circle of acquaintances.

[Colleger]

I'm just wondering how such inept men could then manage to make friends with you? Are you inept or do you have very low standards cheapandchic?

Fwiw, the boys I know at ss schools are in awe of girls, generally dumbstruck and very gentleman like. My OH was one of them and I snared him good and proper!

[GrimmaTheNome]

colleger - snap!

So, boys schools fine so long as you can arrange for your DSs to fall into the hands of a Good Woman!

[pianomama]

...isn't that true for men generally :) .Where would they be without the GW?

[fivecandles]

'my boys should be in a single sex school where they are nurtured and appreciated and not viewed as little perverts in the making'

But that is sort of my argument too. My view is that any sort of gender stereotyping cannot fail to damage boys AND girls.

But also, my concern is not that boys are like this and girls are like that but about SOCIAL ATTITUDES and what they do to our perception and creation of gender differences. Porn damages both boys and girls in my view.

I also think that girls dressing provocatively is a problem and it's connected to the SAME social attitudes that encouage porn - i.e the objectification of women.

If anything, the gender stereotypes about boys being aggressive and strong and football mad are more damaging for boys than for girls. But you have to look at how society as a whole deals with gendered identity as a whole.

Pitching boys against girls or vice versa just encourages the divide and the stereotypes. It's not helpful.

[breadandbutterfly]

Interesting posts, cheapandchic and Grimma - so this effect on men's relationships in later life if they come from all-boys' schools is not just in my mind then...

Good post fivecandles.

colleger - I don't really want my ds to be 'in awe' of women, or dumbstruck round them. I don't think that's terribly hea;lthy. I'd just like him to be relaxed and normal around them, have them as friends...and then relationships are more likely to be balanced when he is older.

[happygardening]

My DH single sex all through school and then three years at college ok not a saint but then Saints - "some of them are so hard to live with"
and not by any stretch of the imagination 'in awe' of women, or dumbstruck!! Nearly 25 years of marriage as well.

[happygardening]

fivecandles you are opposed to stereotyping of both boys and girls but surely the strong criticism above of boys who've been educated in single sex schools is also also a stereotype?

[breadandbutterfly]

happygardening - I'm sure there are plenty of men who go through single sex ed fine. They don't all end up hating women or seeing women as objects rather than people. Just possibly a little more often than men from co-ed?

I'm sure it depends on the school too - some schools are prob more balanced than others.

Re your earlier horsey comments, I am so far from horsey that I think you meant sparkly ponies as in My Little Pony type thng - the real ones never crossed my mind! Good thing too as far beyong my budget...

[happygardening]

You should be worried when I tell you that my parents were probably the most unhorsey people that ever walked the face of the universe and I'm afraid that particular stereotype applied to me in spades. Also forget the budget although considerable its the time factor that is frequently underestimated!
The good news is that it is curable; 20 years of of endless disasters and you can finally come to your senses.

[happygardening]

I think it also has to be accepted that boys schools and in particular boarding schools have also changed considerably over the years. Boys no longer get a spoonful of cod liver oil every morning they loos with locks on and no communal showers. Housemasters usually have families and matrons are generally women. There is also considerable more contact with the local girls school than there was when my husband was at school. He only ever saw the girls from St Pauls Girls when they shared a hall for public examinations! So hopefully they are now turning out more rounded individuals!

[cheapandchic]

I said it was a generalisation! I am just saying in my experience that is what I have seen. I know at least 10 men,maybe more, whom, in my opinion, are not good working with, being friends with or falling in love with women.

Collegar- I am not inept to be friends with them. They are/were flatmates, friends of friends, boyfriends of girlfriends of mine and even my brother in law.
Maybe inept is the wrong word. I am not saying they are bad people at all. I am just saying they are strange with women.

I am just posting why I wouldn't send my son to an all boys school. Sensible or not its just my opinion.

[Colleger]

Lots of comments about why one wouldn't or shouldn't but no actual direct experience of sending a child to one. As I've said I've had one boy who has been all boys except two short periods in co-ed and one in co-ed with one short stint in an all boys. The vulgar language about sex etc from the co-ed school was eye-watering, as was the insecurity from both sides.

As it is, the oddest group of people I've ever come across are musicians and virtually all of them went to co-ed liberal schools. So I don't think a school has much to do with it. Let's face it, Public School is five years of their life so if a child was co-ed up until then, do you think 5 years in an all boys school could really damage a child? Most odd people have odd family relationships!

[teacherwith2kids]

Colleger,

My 'oddest group' is definitely mathematicians. Lovely, in the main, but quite startlingly odd - though where i know the whole family the families are mostly [I exclude the family in which ALL the family members, male and female, for the last 3 generations, are all mathematicians] entirely normal with entirely normal relationships within the family...

In those groups, I would suggest that it is the obsession with something quite abstract that is either a cause of, or a result of, the appearance of 'oddness' to others. Nothing at all related to education - all the brilliant mathematicians I know, male, female, young, old, from state co-eds and exclusive private boarding schools, are all equally a little other-worldly!

Thinking again about single sex schools, I do not, in the main, want or expect my children (or myself) to be defined by their gender. I therefore feel uncomfortable about an education which does so, somewhat as I would be about an education which divided them by e.g. hair colour, ethnicity etc. It seems to me important that they see role models and have friends and work alongside as wide a variety of others as possible - including both sexes.

However, I can see that IF in a co-ed school they were anyway being stereotyped by their gender ('boys run around a lot and don't work hard' / 'girls have neat writing so they are cleverer') then a single sex school might be the least worst option. However, in my experience so far, both of my children are being allowed by a co-ed education to think of themselves as 'learners' first and as girl / boy second, in a school where for a boy it is as cool to be top in maths as it is to captain the football team or play in the school concert, and where for a girl being the class's fastest runner is as valued as being a good artist.

[Colleger]

I forgot about mathematicians! Lol! That's the one thing putting my eldest off studying for a maths degree as he is very normal and he can see the other maths boffins are not!

[breadandbutterfly]

teacherwith2kids - think it was precisely that I have felt/observed girls being stereotyped by their gender that put me off co-ed for my dds. Daresay not all coeds do this as much as others, but I hae observed as both parent and teacher so many comments (from the girls themselves) about how the girls ought to be dressing prettily for the boys, boys dominating classroom time and teachers' attention etc, that i didn't want this for my dds. Sure, they'll hae to do it when older - but hopefully years of being taken seriously and not judged acc to looks will mean they will be used to that and demand the same respect at uni and beyond...

[teacherwith2kids]

B&B, Interesting. As I think I said further up the thread, I looked at and rejected single sex secondary for DS as it really wouldn't have suited him (very sensitive boy - though apparently sporty and tough).

I have found co-ed primary to be fairly 'gender blind' for both, but will look at single sex for secondary for DD to see which would suit her best. From a superficial examination, there is a lot more of the flicky hair / short skirts / heavy make-up evident from the girls' school, and a preponderance of trouser-and-jumper wearing, I'm-dressed-sensibly-for-work, "no particular effort put into appearance" girls from the co-ed ... but that's only what is visible outside the schools, obviously I'll be visiting both and taking each school on its merits.

[happygardening]

*"From a superficial examination, there is a lot more of the flicky hair / short skirts / heavy make-up evident from the girls' school, and a preponderance of trouser-and-jumper wearing, I'm-dressed-sensibly-for-work, "no particular effort put into appearance" girls from the co-ed"8
Have you ever read the thread on on MN about St Pauls girls? I think you might change you view on the above if you had. Although of course it may must be malicious gossip!

[GrimmaTheNome]

teacher - depends on the individual school (as ever). I meet my daughter off her all-girls school bus every day at a stop right outside the local coed and my perceptions are the exact opposite of yours. It was no-uniform day yesterday and it was mostly jeans and hoodies (and no-makeup allowed anyway).

But, from reports of the girls school we wouldn't touch with a bargepole for bullying, that one was fake tan and highlights all the way.