What is the feminist view on single sex education?

[MummyBerryJuice]

I was educated privately in South Africa at girls-only schools largely because my parents wanted me and my brother to be educated in a multiracial setting and during Apartheid state schools were segregated. I have always felt that this was an advantage to me and the other girls as we were under less pressure to conform to girly stereotypes I never experienced any of the commonly held prejudices such as 'girls are better at English and drama and boys are better at maths and physics' etc.

However, now that I am a mum myself and am thinking about the future education of my own children (who currently are only 16 months old and in utero ) I am starting to wonder whether the separation of sexes in education (admittedly not state - which is where our children will be going) is not just another way in which the patriarchy removes women from the mainstream?

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

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

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.

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!

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

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yes, I think that it is important to interact with the opposite sex (for both girls and boys) but it doesn't necessarily have to be in the classroom

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

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

Meant to put "IME on here" at the end there! Got distracted by children.

Lots of people do seem to believe in male brains and female brains.

Even if the two exist (which having just read Delusions of Gender I am rather less convinced about), some girls will have "boy brains", some boys will have "girl brains" and so it's better for them to be in a classrom where things are being taught in more than one way.

If the two don't exist, but teachers think they do, then obviously there'll be an even bigger proportion of people who are not having theri individual learning style catered to.

Why do people believe in that do you think? It seems so counter-intuitive to me.

This has some interesting points -www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/edt/eofb/subs/sub130.pdf

Differences in neural firing have been shown in live MRI scans when boys and girls are reading. These results from dyslexia research have been extrapolated into a whole series of assumptions that were neither the focus of, nor are they supported by, this research.

Danger of false positives in MRI

i haven't yet read all of this fascinating thread but will add my views:
i went to all girls grammar (all schools in 1960s in my town were single sex). We had loads to do with the boys' school and by the age of 14 all had boy 'mates' then boyfriends via brothers, school dances and youth clubs. At junior school we had a boys' playground and a girls' playground and sep entrances too! We were still mates with the boys in our classes. I have 3 sisters and no brothers but never ever felt like i didn't know how to deal with boys. My experience was broadly positive and I like the fact that in lessons there were no distractions at secondary level.

Now my two dds go to mixed schools and each have different experiences. The eldest is fine lots of friends of both sexes (but no more than me at that age tbh) BUT I hate the fact that she spends an hour getting ready in the morning, make up, hair straightners,and, imo, ridiculous choice of clothes (in 6th form) which are variously low cut, high hemmed etc. There are also lots of problems i hear about when x breaks u with y!

the youngest hates school, hates the fact that she can't be friends with any boy without being taunted that he is her 'boyfriend' , is really unhappy at not being a 'cool' and being laughed at for having the wrong length hair/fringe/skirt/wrong jumper. She is also very bright and gets taunted for this too. I feel very strongly that if there were no boys there these idiotically behave girls wouldn't be behaving like this.

I want to move her to a single sex school for which we will either have to move county (no single sex here) or pay for private education. I think she'd be best in a single sex school with a caring ethos and no far too early sexually charged competition. (she is 12)

I do worry about the appearance thing a lot. I often drive past kids on their way to and from secondary and am struck by the amount of make-up and grooming the girls seem to have on. When I was at school (not that long ago - I'm quite young) all that was against the rules and there was no need really as we had no one to impress AND our school uniform was so hideous that there was no way in which to dress it up anyway.

My dd goes to an all girls school - and there is still huge emphasis on appearance, I'm sorry to say. And therte anve been instances of bullying because someone doesn;t look "right". So even with no boys to impress, girls judge each other this way.

I agree with seeker, some (though by no means all) girls schools are dreadful for that. Friends of mine went to a performing arts/ballet biassed school .... apparently it was quite as bad as you'd imagine.

You get nasty schools with bullying and peer pressure in single-sex and mixed varieties, the bullying and peerpressure may be of a slightly different flavour but that doesn't mean it's not there.