The Controversy Of Choosing Girls In Co-Educational Schools

When you send your children off in the morning to go to school, no matter what grade they are in whither it be elementary, junior high, or senior high, you expect that they will receive the best education that they can get. They should be asked challenging questions, encouraged and called upon to participate in class, they should also be given as much help as they need to secede by the teacher. However, this is most commonly not the case. Parents and the children themselves are unaware of what is going on because gender bias is not a noisy problem. Most people are unaware of the secret sexist lessons that occur every day in classrooms across the country. In this essay I will use two essay's from the reader:

The issue of single-sex schools versus co-ed schools is very much debated and controversial. There are strong supporters for both sides, giving good and valid arguments. It is an issue with a long history, receiving great attention from the media, researchers, teachers and most of all, parents. Although there are many studies that try to answer this question, the problem will probably continue to exist and be debated, the opinions being mixed. After all, choosing a type of education is a matter of personal choice. Nonetheless, there are several clear advantages and disadvantages of both, and there is evidence that there are differences when it comes to

It is true, but single sex schools are failing due to the fact that more people choose to go to a co-ed school. Gender gap can be related to differences in the personalities of the students, the academic environment and the society’s views. Brooks makes it seem like males are a victim of gender discrimination in schools and that nowadays less males go into career fields that has more reading to do but it is not true. It is the student’s personal preferences and work ethics that lead to their success in life. Since more females are getting higher education and achieving degrees, more females are in the work force, therefore the rate of males hired in a certain career field goes down while the female rate goes up. It is important to get the point across because more people would believe the facts that are partially true and then conclude with an inaccurate statement. Single sex schools should be the individual’s choice and left as it is. Co-education is more popular nowadays because people don’t see the need to have separate facilities based on

McArdle says “We should start teaching them according to how they learn, not according to some idea that boys and girls have to learn the same way” (167). This could be a new possible system of teaching the two sexes differently without holding anyone back in the process. Male and female have different brain activity and also very different ways of learning. When it comes to teaching there needs to be a more specific study, to come with a more evolved teaching criteria. Lastly Conlin says “A new world has opened up for girls, but unless a symmetrical effort is made to help boys find their footing, it may turn out that it’s a lonely place to be. After all, it takes more than one gender to have a gender revolution” (179). Schools need to start taking responsibility for what goes on in schools and their teaching methods that are failing everyone especially

The programs that seperate the sexses in schools are usually based on very questionable science about the differences of girls’ and boys’ brains during development and learning, along with gender stereotypes. The American Civil Liberties Union’s article, ‘Sex-Segregated schools; Separate and Unequal’ says,” Advocates tell teachers that: Boys need a competitive and confrontational learning environment,

In more recent years, our educational system has faced challenges that are leading our country back into segregation. Single-sex education has resurfaced; jeopardizing the gains our ancestors fought so hard for. A few people believe that the biological make-up between genders is significantly different, that having coeducational classes is doing more harm than good. Conversely, there is no proven study that supports these claims; however studies have displayed the exact opposite. Separating genders within the educational system will only perpetuate and magnify

Gender stereotyping and gender preferences have been a problem in society for many years. Modern day society has only just emerged from the ideology and mind-set that males are the dominant gender. However, some of this still lingers within the educational system. Hatton (1998) states that boys have been the preference over girls in the classroom as boys are more lively and interesting. Teachers rely on the good behaviour of the girls, which makes them ‘less interesting’, so that the time can be spent with the boys (Hatton, 1998). Gender is the distinguishing biological aspects of a person that considers them to be a male or a female (Davies, 1998). However, in this modern society we live in, ‘gender’ cannot so easily be labelled this black and white. In Australian schools today, the schools experience transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) young people (Ullman, 2015). This is to say that there are some young people who do not conform to what society biologically says they are. A metaphorical theory that Ferfolja, Diaz and Ullman (2015) discuss called the ‘unseen half’ perfectly places this social unjust issue of gender inequality. This theory states that diversity, individual or communities, within the educational system often undervalued or found difficult to understand are rendered ‘invisible’ in day-to-day practices (Ferfolja, Diaz, & Ullman, 2015). As recent as 1979, women were

In our schools currently, a cornucopia of gender biases is inhibiting the good education of students. Women have been trained to be ‘feminine’ ever since preschool, always being told to be less assertive and be ‘girlier’. These ideas of femininity have created the bias

On September 22, 2015 an article was published on Global News, which was entitled “‘Girl talk’ or ‘career exploration’? Texas school’s gender segregation peeves parents.” In this article, Patricia Kozicka discusses the controversial issue regarding Borchardt Elementary School in Texas, in which students in grade four and five were divided into separate classes based on their gender (Kozicka, 2015). According to the article, it is reported that, at the beginning of this school year, females and males would be placed in separate classes in which they would focus on different curriculums (Kozicka, 2015). Specifically, that females would focus on confidence and relationship building skills, whereas, males would focus on career and future aspirations (Kozicka, 2015). The principle cleared up the issue with an email stating that the class would be split based on gender, however, both would still receive the same curriculum only with different schedules of the lessons and more emphasis on particular topics (Kozicka, 2015).

Should there still be colleges and schools just for men/boys and some just for women/girls? School years always have a significant influence on a youth’s values and cognitive development. At their early stage, youths need recognition, self-confidence, and motivation; having a healthy learning environment is extremely important for their growth. In today’s society, most of the schools provide mixed-sex education; however, there is a common phenomenon that few co -educational schools value girls’ participation and achievements. My nephew who studies at a private school remarked recently that his male classmates are really active in math class and those girls have little chance to answer the question even they know the answer. More than that, in his computer science class, there were just 3 girls among 25 boys. When I asked him why was that, he answered that computer science was simply a subject for boys. It seems that even in one of the best co-ed schools, girls have less opportunity to celebrate their achievements and have to struggle to make their voices heard amongst active boys. When sitting in the same classroom, reading the same text, listening to the same instructor, males and females receive very different treatments, which decrease females’ learning effectiveness. In a single-sex school, no one thinks that courses have gender: Computer Science is open to all of the girls; it is not unseemly for a female to imagine herself as a programmer, entrepreneur, or president.

Cecilia Ridgway, in “Framed by Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World,” holds that gender exists as an organizing social force. We value certain stereotypes of how people of a certain gender should act and incorporate these expectations into our social relations. Men, Ridgeway explains, are typically viewed as having more “competence, assertiveness, confidence, independence, forcefulness, and dominance” (Ridgeway, 2011) in social relations. Women, on the other hand, are viewed as valuing “emotional expressiveness, nurturance, interpersonal sensitivity, kindness, and responsiveness” (Ridgeway, 2011). According to Ridgeway, these gender stereotypes are

Combatting gender bias in the classroom is imperative to an equitable education and a better society. Research suggests that businesses that are gender-diverse have greater success than those that are male-dominated and the International Monetary Fund

In many cases the classroom reinforces gender stereotypes perpetuated by society. This can be found in the materials used for instruction,

Do you have friends that are the opposite gender? I am sure that at least 90% of you said yes. Have any of you had to do a group project, or a partner project with the opposite gender? Now all of you have said yes. When kids spend time with only one gender from elementary school to high school, they learn to only interact with their gender. They aren't used to the way the opposing gender acts, so they don't know how to understand the opposing genders feelings and how their natural behaviour is. How are kids supposed to interact with the outside world and the opposite gender if they are forced to only interact with one gender for 5 days a week? These schools should be banned because of how they lack communication with the opposing genders. Single gendered schools are separate schools for each gender. There are all boys schools and all girls schools. Single gendered schools have many pros, but they have many cons as well. I am Sanya Sheth and I am pro for banning single gender schools. Some of those cons are that, single gendered schools are considered sexist, Boys and girls don’t learn differently, but many people say they do, and with no preparation single gendered schools may go down hill.

A further reason support the idea of separating the two genders at high school is ‘gender stereotyping’ as it is less in single- sex high schools than in co-educational ones as during this period of education, students specify their ambitions,