Arguments for Single-Sex Classes

Title: Single-Sex Classrooms Are Succeeding
Personal Author: Gurian, Michael; Stevens, Kathy; Daniels, Peggy
Journal Name: Educational Horizons
Source: Educational Horizons v. 87 no. 4 (Summer 2009) p. 234-45
Publication Year: 2009

In this article the authors have compiled a comprehensive list of schools where single-sex classrooms have been implemented and the reaction of students, faculty, and parents. In many of these cases the stories of success were enjoyable to read, but lacked the numbers required to see a measureable difference in before and after. The following example provided by the authors gave enough information to see a difference.

“Roosevelt Middle School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma:
The school serves nine hundred students in grades 6-8. One hundred percent of Roosevelt's students qualify for free lunch and 75 percent are minority. In 2005, Roosevelt had a gender gap of 17 percent in reading achievement; 72 percent of Roosevelt's eighth-grade girls scored satisfactory on their state assessment tests, but only 55 percent of eighth-grade boys scored satisfactory.

At the end of the 2005-2006 school year, Roosevelt's boys scored 71 percent satisfactory on the reading CRT and the girls scored 80 percent, narrowing the achievement gap to 9 percent in one year. The 2006-2007 school year was the first year Roosevelt had been off the state's "at risk" list in four years.”

In this school, clearly there was a successful transition to the single-sex classrooms for both male and female students. The leaps and bounds of success excited everyone involved and encouraged the continuation of the program.



AUTHOR: BOBBY H. HOFFMAN; BARBARA A. BADGETT; ROBERT P. PARKER
TITLE: The Effect of Single-Sex Instruction in a Large, Urban, At-Risk High School
SOURCE: The Journal of Educational Research (Washington, D.C.) 102 no1 15-35 S/O 2008

This article is very meticulous in laying out the scientific method which they use and used to take a look at their topic. The article takes a look at student, faculty and the achievement effects off single-sex classrooms.

Students, Girls:

“Girls reported SSI as academically preferable because there were fewer disruptions (Parker & Rennie, 2002), better opportunities to concentrate on work (Mullholland et al., 2004), and diminished feelings of embarrassment for speaking up in class (Jackson & Smith, 2000; McCoy, 1995). Girls also have claimed that they were disadvantaged in CE classrooms (Jackson & Smith) and that SSI classes offered more support, less hassle, and less ridicule and teasing from peers (Parker &. Rennie). Last, girls reported that in SSI classes, they felt more comfortable, shared their thoughts more often, and felt less afraid to ask teachers questions during class or to offer answers for fear of being wrong (McCoy, 1995).”

Students, Boys:

“Boys' responses to and perceptions of SSI have been more varied. Although some boys (a) felt that they received greater encouragement and (b) appreciated the ability to talk about personal issues without ridicule from girls, others reported enjoying SSI for reasons unrelated to learning. They liked being able to talk about sports (Martino et al., 2005) and to "tell sexist things" (Parker and Rennie, 2002, p. 891). At the same time, other boys preferred CE instruction because they felt that it was easier to concentrate on their work (Mullholland et al., 2004), that girls were easier to work with (Parker & Rennie), and that the boys themselves behaved better when girls were in class with them (Jackson & Smith, 2000).”

Teachers:

The article states the obvious, teachers’ willingness to teach in a single-sex classroom affects the outcomes, but teachers are generally willing and excited to try single-sex classrooms. However, the reaction of teachers to the different sexes was interesting. The teachers were very excited to teach the female classes because the teachers believed it would help the girls more, and the girls would be more receptive. The teachers were less enthusiastic about teaching the boys classes, because they felt as if the boys were more rowdy and that the boys tried to show alpha male tactics more often.

Achievement:

The article concluded that not enough research had been done to definitively say one way or another to the effectiveness of a single-sex classroom environment, simply because the test pool was still too small.