Sunday, October 23, 2011

Single gender education recent research

On another post Anonymous wrote:

“Single-sex education fails to produce academic benefits and inflates gender stereotyping.”

Room for Debate- A Runni#46A0CF
Single-Sex Schools: Separate but Equal

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/17/single-sex-schools-separate-but-equal?ref=education

“Additionally, based on voluminous research of the negative effects of separating people into groups, we warned that single-sex classrooms would likely generate and exacerbate stereotyping and sexist attitudes. Rather than promoting gender segregation, public schools should be striving to teach a diverse body of students to work together and to respect each other.”

“For nearly a decade, proponents of single-sex schooling have argued that boys and girls differ so fundamentally in brain functioning, sensory abilities, interests, stress responsiveness and more that they cannot be taught effectively in the same classrooms. However, scientific data do not support these claims, and, indeed, many single-sex advocates have recently backed away from them. Nonetheless, such advocates have already trained hundreds of teachers (often at taxpayer expense) in mythic “gender-specific learning styles” that make a mockery of Title IX’s requirement to eliminate sex discrimination in schools.”

3 comments:

Questioner said...

Those assigned to Westinghouse do not seem convinced of the claims for single gender education. Word is that there are only about 360 high school students, even after Peabody was closed and many students assigned to Westinghouse. Wasn't the administration saying just a couple years ago that high schools smaller than 600 students could not offer an acceptable range of activities and academic options?

Mark Rauterkus said...

Does Westinghouse really offer a single gender setting, really?

Anonymous said...

The problem at Westinghouse is the weak administration. The students are running the school. Following the PELA model, teachers are on their own and get no support from the administration for discipline. Students are in the halls instead of in class. So do the genders mix? Of course, but single sex or mixed sexes, if they aren't in class, or when in class they are disruptive, they are not learning.