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.

[glaurung]

my dd changed from a co-ed school to a girls only one (at her insistence) in year 10. At exactly the same time she changed from being a scruff to someone who wouldn't leave the house without spending ages arranging her hair, makeup etc. Probably it was just her age rather than the school ethos, or just wanting to fit in at the new school, but it's interesting.

[pianomama]

glaurung - your are right, its the age and not school. 2 DDs (girls school) and DD3 (mixed ) followed exactly the same pattern at certain ages (especially that unbearable 2 hr preparationjust to pop out to the local shop) and I am happy to say, all grew out of it very quickly to become lovely young ladies with immaculate tastes in dressing (just like their mother :) ).
Interestingly, DD3 took much quicker to snap out of it - I wonder if this was due to me being much more relaxed and less confrontational about it.

[breadandbutterfly]

Eurgh. Hope not. Hope the fact their mum wears no make up ever will mean my dds bypass that stage. Sounds v v tedious.

[teacherwith2kids]

Happygardening and others,

I think I made it clear that I was commenting on my local schools, not on schools in general - and as St Paul's isn't local to me, I wasn't commenting about that particular school.

Of course it depends very much on individual schools. It may be that my local co-ed school has an exceptionally tough uniform policy, which simply doesn't allow for the type of hairstyles and clothing I see on the all-girls' school pupils of the same age (definitely not an age thing, i'm talking about teens of very similar ages).

I'm just saying that for my local schools, my observation is that "dressing and behaving provocatively when in school uniform" is more common for the local single sex school than it is for the local co-ed - and as the mother of a scruffy tomboy type (at least when not in her 'ballerina' persona!) I can therefore see her more comfortably fitting into the co-ed school. I am prepared, through further research, to be proved wrong - not as in "wrong about single sex schools in general" but wrong in that "defining a female child by their gender" may turn out in the end to be more prevalent in my local co-ed school than the all-girls' one. Such research definitely demonstrated that defining a boy by his gender was MUCH more prevalent in the all-boys' school (every sentence in the tour of the school was prefaced "Well, because boys prefer / like / do more of / need x, y andz") than the co-ed one, which is why DS is staying co-ed.

[happygardening]

At the end of the day the most important thing is that we as parents believe we are doing the right thing for our own children and ultimately other parents do not have a right to criticise. We also need to accept that nearly all parents want the best for their children even if their idea of "best" is not my idea of ?best? and we all have to respect this.

[MN164]

Not sure how this got resurrected by a deleted post, but the debate is still just as fresh today at 4 years ago.

If any one fancies joining me on this, do chip in!

I am against any distinction by gender as a principle and my "utopia" would be "blind" to gender, race, colour, belief, etc.

However, the real world is not gender blind and, sadly, life for adolescent girls, is just as frought with mysogeny as it ever was, albeit in different ways.

I often here this line "I went to a girls school and they are too bitchy without boys around"

First of all, that person has no experience of girls in a co-ed setting to compare too. In fact, women in adult life professionally and socially can exhibit that behaviour too. There is no evidence where the sample is more than 1 to support this idea.

It is just as likely that girls identify with each other and support each other in a "safe place" in a way that they might not if boys are around. It is also likely that the schools pastoral system, 100% focussed on girls, will better suit adolescent issues for girls.

However, that is merely hypothesis. The data supports it, dig deep into the research and you will see that:

• like for like academic achievement is greater in girls schools (state or private)
  
• single sex educated girls tend to earn more, rise to higher levels in their professions and marry just as often as others (no problem forming relationships)
  

- gender stereo typed subject choices don't happen (hence maths, physics and science female candidates too low in co-ed and "normal" in single sex)

• levels of bullying are lower in girls school (how does that square with the "bitchy" element)
  
• levels of mental health disorders etc are no different to nationwide averages (which are sadly too high)
  
• sexual harrassment and abuse in school premises is high in co-ed settings but NON-EXISTANT in girls schools. That's not to say all boys are harrassing, but it makes it clear that as amny as 5 girls in any classroom will have been a victim by the end of their co-ed schooling (is that good for a 11-16 year old girl - is that "preparing them for the real world"?)
  

Sources: Dept of Education, NSPCC, Centre for Longitudinal Research.


To repeat, I don't like the fact that the evidence supports girls schooling as, on average, better for girls ..... but when the evidence is solid, I change my mind.

Rant over, discuss. ......

[MN164]

hear .... [sigh]