New Report Gives Single-Sex Schooling the Ax for Fostering Sexism What’s the Evidence 2011

Although many single-sex schools achieve exceptional exam results, there is no solid evidence that this is the result of keeping boys and girls apart.

In fact while there is no proof they provide a better learning environment, research suggests segregated schools make children more likely to accept sexist stereotypes.

Because many single-sex schools are selective, their strong exam results could be down to having academically advanced pupils and more demanding teaching programmes, experts said.

In a report published in the Science journal, researchers wrote: "Sex-segregated education is deeply misguided and often justified by weak, cherry-picked or misconstrued scientific claims rather than by valid scientific evidence.

"There is no well-designed research showing that single-sex education improves students' academic performance, but there is evidence that sex segregation increases gender stereotyping and legitimises institutional sexism."

A gaggle of social scientists has no doubt about single-sex schooling: It reinforces gender stereotypes, legitimizes institutional sexism, and evidence of its supposed academic achievements is weak, cherry-picked or misconstrued. A new report published in Science Magazine launches an attack on sex-segregated classrooms, which critics say undermine a core value of public education by reducing “boys’ and girls’ opportunities to work together in a supervised, purposeful environment.”

“The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling” lands as single-sex classrooms are mushrooming in public schools across the nation. The report claims “teachers make children’s sex salient” through segregation, which “exaggerates sex-typed behaviors and attitudes,” while disputing that “single-sex classrooms CAN break down gender stereotypes,” as National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE) argues. NASSPE claims that because single-sex education dissolves narrow cultural assumptions about what is appropriate for boys and girls, students flourish academically in the segregated classroom.

The report is likely to spark another round of debate bringing opponents and advocates back on the barricades in a battle that has raised heart rates for years.

After decades of decline, single-sex schooling has recently experienced revival. In 2006 the U.S. Educational Department reinterpreted Title IX of the U.S. Educational Amendment, which since 1972 had outlawed discrimination on the basis of sex from federal funded educational programs, and an estimated 509 public schools opened their doors to sex-segregated classrooms this summer, compared to only a dozen in 2002. NASSPE predicts many more in the pipeline.