Separate and Unequal?

Think sending your daughter to a single-sex academy will make her
assertive, or that an all-boys school will teach your son new found
respect for women? That's not necessarily the case, according to one
landmark California study. Instead, teachers tend to unintentionally
reinforce traditional gender stereotypes in single-sex classrooms, often
sending mixed messages about gender, according to results published in 2001 in Teachers College Record. Boys, for example, were told it's
OK to cry, but should learn to be strong and support their wives. Girls
were told they could do anything they want, but were also made aware of
expectations to be feminine in clothing and appearance. In some schools,
girls were taught quilting, sewing or makeup application.

Amanda Datnow, Ph.D., an assistant professor of education
administration at the University of Toronto, and her colleagues at the
University of California at San Diego tested single-sex education in six
California districts, observing classrooms and interviewing more than 300
middle- and high-school students and their parents and teachers.

"Educators believed that simply by separating boys and girls,
gender equity would be achieved, but that didn't pan out," says Datnow.
"The tendency was to teach according to presumptions that girls are
cooperative or boys are competitive." Boys were viewed as rambunctious
and talkative, and were closely monitored. But because girls are
stereotyped as studious and well-behaved, they were allowed more freedom.
Interestingly, removing the opposite sex did not eliminate single-sex
strife. Girls were catty toward one another, and boys taunted other boys.
One distinct advantage of the single-sex classroom, though, is the candor
with which dating, pregnancy and gender can be addressed. Research has
established that romance can derail the scholastic aspirations of boys
and girls alike, and "Single-sex classrooms allowed girls and boys to
engage in discussion about how to make life decisions that would enhance
their future academic achievement," says Datnow.

So segregating boys and girls may not teach kids gender equality,
but it could force them to sit through geography without passing love
letters across the aisles.