The Same Sex
School Paradox
Single sex education is something we
don’t see a lot of. However in the past couple of decades it’s been picking up
in popularity. “Across the nation, the number of public schools exclusively
for boys or girls has risen from 3 in 1995 to 241 today…” This topic is very
polarized with strong evidence on both sides.
There seems
to be this tug of war going on. Males will usually outperform females in science
and math, and girls will outperform males in reading and writing. When the
class rooms are unisex then we see an interesting trend. Girls will do just as
well in science and math compared to their male counterparts. Same goes for
boys performing in reading and writing. This almost makes it an even playing field
in academics. Isn’t this what society
wants, equality? Well ironically enough single sex schools promote gender
stereotypes.
The
effects of unisex schools and classrooms have some consequences as well. “Research shows that segregation promotes stereotyping.” (How Can
Single-Sex Schooling Be Harmful?). The conclusion I came to when reading about
this, is to never segregate unless you have to. Whether it's segregation by
race, sex, or religion, it always leads to something bad. Another big con is that it “Doesn’t prepare students
for work or family life. “(Single-Sex
Education: Pros and Cons). This is a great point
since; the rest of the world is not going to be divided up by sex. It’s interesting
how much we value diversity and mixing everyone together. When something like
same sex schools are becoming more popular as time goes on.
Society is
stuck in this equality paradox where same sex schools promote equality in terms
of academics, but at the same time it will encourage gender stereotypes. Which
ones more important? Well there is no clean cut answer. I wish there was a way where we could have our
cake and eat it too.
Sources
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