OSSE Ed Digest
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Vol. 5, Issue 1
January 2008
Bringing urban P-16 education resources to policymakers, parents, advocates, and district and school staff in the District of Columbia
Research on DC Schools
National Lessons Learned
New Ideas
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education does not endorse the views expressed in the resources and reports contained in the OSSE Ed Digest.
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Until recently, research on the benefits of public single-sex education in the United States has been limited. However, in 2006, the Bush administration relaxed some of the restrictions on single-sex education in public schools, allowing districts to create single-sex schools, classes and programs. The new regulations allow more flexibility to offer nonvocational elementary and secondary classes, extracurricular activities, and schools on a single-sex basis, consistent with the nondiscrimination requirements of Title IX. School districts are now allowed to establish single-sex classes and schools, as long as enrollment is voluntary and coeducational schools and classes offer the same number and substantially equal quality programs for members of the excluded sex. In the District of Columbia, Septima Clark Public Charter School opened as the first single-sex public charter school in August 2006, serving boys in grades pre-kindergarten to kindergarten. The District has also piloted single-sex classrooms in its public schools. Because the government has given public school districts more latitude to expand the number of single-sex classes and schools, it is important to determine how effectively single-sex classes and schools are educating students. This issue of the OSSE Ed Digest presents a range of research and information on public single-sex schools.
Federal Legislation, Regulations and Guidance
Articles
Single-Sex Public Schools and Public Schools that Offer Single-Sex Classes in the District of Columbia
Reports
Federal Legislation, Regulations and Guidance
Articles
Single-Sex Public Schools and Public Schools that Offer Single-Sex Classes in the District of Columbia
Reports
Single-sex public schools are viewed by some as a vehicle for improving the educational experiences of low-income and minority students. This two-year ethnographic study of low-income and minority students who attended experimental single-sex academies in California indicate that improving achievement involves more than just separating students by gender. Using students’ and educators’ voices, this anthropological study shows that these’ schools’ successes were due more to the interrelated contributions of the schools’ organizational characteristics, positive student-teacher relationships, and ample resources.
Experiments with single gender schooling are occurring in public school districts across the U.S. Yet, very little systematic research has been conducted on these schools and little is known about their motivations, design, or outcomes with respect to students, teachers, and school systems. In 1997, California became the first state to experiment with single gender public education on a large scale. Six districts opened single gender academies (both boys and girls) as a result of former California Governor Pete Wilson’s legislation and funding for a single gender academies pilot program in the public school system. This report presents findings from a three-year case study of these single gender academies in six districts in California. This study involved 300+ extensive interviews with educators, policymakers, and students, and school and classroom observations. It is the most comprehensive study of single sex public schooling that has been conducted in the U.S. to date. The purpose of this study was to assess the consequences of single gender schooling in the public sector and focused on the socio-political context of single gender public schooling in the state of California and in each community; the organization and implementation of single gender schooling in each district; and the policy implications regarding single gender academies as a school choice option. Findings include the following: the success of California’s pilot program was undermined by implementation challenges; most of the single gender academies were, by design, not open to all students; traditional gender stereotypes were often reinforced in the single gender academies, for example, boys tended to be taught in a more regimented, traditional, and individualistic fashion, and girls in more nurturing, cooperative and open environments; the separation of girls and boys did reduce classroom distractions from the opposite sex, however, students still experienced teasing and harassment in the coeducational spaces of the single-gender academies; and public, single gender academies were not sustainable under California’s policy framework.
Although research on the effects of K-12 single-sex education is inconclusive in general, some common themes emerge in the research literature. This Digest reviews that research with particular attention to effects on girls' attitudes and achievement. The Digest first discusses attitudinal variables (i.e., self-esteem and attitudes toward academic subjects) and then explores research on achievement variables. The Digest concludes with a summary of research findings, including the following: (1) studies of attitudinal variables yielded some consistent findings, including differences in specific domains of self-concept between girls in single- and mixed-sex schools, and findings that support the view that single-sex contexts foster less stereotypical views of subjects; (2) studies finding positive achievement effects attributable to school type tend to view their findings as specific to certain contexts and group characteristics (including socioeconomic status); (3) some studies recognize that some single-sex schools are "doing something different" that may be reproducible in the coeducational context--these studies view policy and training interventions as particularly valuable; and (4) other studies have not claimed positive achievement effects for single-sex programs. The research, while inconsistent in its assessments of whether single-sex education is "better" than coeducation for girls, does reveal areas of consensus on specific indicators, which may serve as starting points for further research into how single-sex schools affect educational outcomes.
This article examines the 11-year Soviet experiment with boys' schools as a way to cast new light on scholarly research and public debates about single-sex education. Drawing on archival and published materials by educators who described school conditions, identified problems, suggested reforms, and evaluated remedies, the author argues that separating boys from girls exacerbated the problems of coeducational schools while generating additional difficulties and dilemmas specific to sex-segregated schools. With the restoration of coeducation in 1954, single-sex schooling, and boys' schools in particular, had been decisively repudiated. For educators, policymakers, and parents engaged in the current debate on sex-separated schooling, this case study involving more than a million male pupils can serve as a cautionary tale about the possible difficulties and potential consequences of a large-scale gender segregation policy.
On November 12, 1997, the AAUW Educational Foundation convened a historic roundtable of educational scholars to examine the collected research on single-sex education in grades K-12 generated over more than two decades. The purpose of the one-day forum was to identify key findings for use by the broader education and research community, while correcting misperceptions and pinpointing areas needing further study. The 16 prominent researchers who took part in the roundtable shared a desire to help clarify the subject’s complexities for educators, who are grappling increasingly with the question of what role, if any, single-sex education should play in national educational reform. The roundtable was stimulated by a comprehensive literature review. Roundtable participants presented four papers (by Patricia Campbell and Ellen Wahl, Valerie Lee, Diane Pollard, and Cornelius Riordan) and reviewed the implications of the presenters’ findings. This report includes the literature review and four papers presented at the roundtable, summarizes the roundtable discussion and the participants’ suggestions for future research. From their discussion, the following basic points of consensus emerged: there is no evidence that single-sex education in general “works” or is “better” than coeducation; no matter whether in a coed or a single-sex setting, educators and policymakers need to work further to identify the components of a “good education;” single-sex educational programs produce positive results for some students in some settings; the long-term impact of single-sex education on girls or boys is unknown; no learning environment, single-sex or coed, provides a sure escape from sexism; and single-sex education covers so broad a gamut as to defy most generalizations.
The Bush administration wants to make it easier to establish all-boy or all-girl public schools. While there is a long tradition of private single-sex schools in the United States, there are probably fewer than two dozen single-sex public schools. Advocates of single-sex education believe it represents a valuable educational option, especially for girls, who they say flourish away from boys' teasing. But critics say the approach offers no real social or educational benefits for girls or for boys. Federal law currently casts doubt on the legality of single-sex public schools. The law bars single-sex programs unless comparable services are available to boys and girls alike. The Department of Education is considering revising its regulations to soften that provision, reversing three decades of federal policy.
In March, 2004, the federal Department of Education issued proposed Title IX regulations that promise to provide public school districts and charter school organizers considerable flexibility in establishing single-sex classes and schools. At the same time, however, as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Department has called for "scientifically based" research to guide educational practices while the Supreme Court has ruled that state actors need an "exceedingly persuasive" justification for drawing distinctions on the basis of sex. The dramatic turnaround in federal policy and the seeming inconsistencies in the law have sparked heated debate that has plumbed the depths of gender, race, and ideology. Yet both sides concur that research findings supporting single-sex schooling are inconclusive. This article works through this conundrum, maintaining that social science evidence has far more to offer the debate than either supporters or detractors of single-sex schooling recognize. To validate that assertion, it examines data on academic performance and social deficits across gender and race as well as tentative evidence from existing programs. Based on these findings, the author draws the critical connection among program planning, implementation, and assessment and urges educators and researchers to explore a broad range of questions and methods both in their search for evidence to inform and guide program development and in their efforts to generate new findings that will prove instructive if not definitive in measuring the overall effects of these programs.
This report discusses the history of single-sex schools and analyzes the legal status of these schools, reviewing constitutional dimensions of gender-based discrimination and the leading cases that have been litigated on these issues. It also offers reflections on why single-sex schools are not likely to hold a major place in the future of urban U.S. public schools.
Research in the United States on the question of whether public single-sex education might be beneficial to males, females or a subset of either group (particularly disadvantaged youths) has been limited. However, because there has been a resurgence of single-sex schools in the public sector, it was deemed appropriate to conduct a systematic review of single-sex education research. This study compared single-sex schools to coeducational schools in the following measures: quantifiable academic accomplishments; individual student adaptation and socio-emotional development; gender inequity; and school climate. The following results were found. There is some support for the premise that single-sex schooling can be helpful, especially for certain outcomes related to academic achievement and more positive academic aspirations. For many outcomes, there is no evidence of either benefit or harm. There is limited support for the view that single-sex schooling may be harmful or that coeducational schooling is more beneficial for students.
The question of whether single-sex (SS) schooling is preferable to coeducation (CE) for some or all students continues to be hotly debated. Much of the debate is philosophical and would be waged even if single-sex schooling were shown to be highly advantageous for one or more subpopulations. However, the actual research evidence, although suggestive that SS schools can benefit some students in some realms of academic and socio-emotional accomplishment, is equivocal. The inability to make clear theoretical hypotheses hampers research in this realm because it reduces a very complex issue to an endless series of all-or-nothing studies, all summarized as being “equivocal.” It also forces or allows arbitrary, implicit decisions about which outcomes or affected populations are more important than others. If the theoretical rationales that are worthy of further study and their intended populations and outcomes are specified, future research can be conducted in a more compelling fashion. Advocates for both sides will be more likely to accept research that has specified its claims and has stipulated in advance what would or would not be evidence of worthwhile outcomes. In addition, by laying out competing goals and outcomes, advocates might be more likely to honestly specify their own hierarchies of worthwhile outcomes so that philosophical debate is not confused with empirical debate. Hence, the primary purpose of this paper is to enumerate, categorize, and critique extant explanations for why SS schools should be more or less effective than CE schools, in what realms, and for what outcomes.
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