
Single-Sex vs. Coed: The Evidence  - dsego
http://www.singlesexschools.org/evidence.html
======
derefr
Schools are structured environments for the socialization of youth, as much as
they are learning environments. Attending a single-sex school might lead to
knowing a little bit more about Plato or the Crimean War (let's just concede
the point for the sake of argument), but they're kind of ignoring the negative
impact it'll have on the emotional intelligence and gender-relations of the
kids who will be stuck in a place where they never get a chance to learn from
the perspective of someone of the opposite sex.

I would like the article to answer this: how well do the kids in the single-
sex schools do later on in life, when they end up having to _work_ alongside
people of the opposite sex? What are the relative rates of rape, spousal
abuse, divorce, unplanned pregnancy, etc. between adults who came from the
single-sex vs. the co-ed schools?

~~~
Nursie
Would very much like to see data on this.

My folks sent me to a very good, private, single sex school from the age of
7-18. Came out with an awesome education and no idea how to even have a
conversation with a woman. Women may as well have been aliens.

That was a good few years ago now and I'm fairly normalised I think, but it
took a while. Would never do that to any kids I have, though that ain't
looking exactly likely any time soon.

~~~
VLM
WRT anecdotes, you need to statistically correct for the vast number of guys
who would agree with the same statement with "same sex" crossed out.

~~~
Nursie
I agree, not knowing how to talk to women is hardly unique to people who went
to single sex school, and I will never know how I would have been had I not
been in a segregated school so it's very hard to make an absolute judgement.

Maybe it would have been worse for my academic career, but again, maybe not.
But I can only think that it couldn't have been worse in terms of social
weirdness.

------
silverbax88
This is a dangerous idea. Why? Because it starts with the idea that single-sex
schools are better, then proceed to attempt to prove that point with studies
that show single-sex classrooms get on average better grades and are more
likely to attend college.

But attending college and getting better grades is not the goal. In fact, one
of the biggest employment and political problems in the United States is due
to so many middle class parents conditioning their kids into thinking that
going to college will solve their future and guarantee them employment. But,
let's toss that aside for the moment.

The argument on this site begins with a study of South Korea, which randomly
assigns students to coed or same-sex schools (we don't REALLY know how random
this is), and shows data which these students are more likely to get higher
grades and attend college.

But the real question is NOT can they get better grades - the question is
whether there are educational systems that can better prepare students to be a
success in LIFE, not just get to college. Do students who attend same-sex
schools fare better in relationships, do they push society forward in the
underlying principals of a better civilization? Do they make the world better,
and are they happy?

The real result? South Korea is ranked 111th in the world in gender equality.
(For comparison, the United States is ranked 22nd).

So let's ask something that SingleSexSchools.org will NEVER want to answer -
are opportunities for girls in South Korea as good as those offered by men? Is
the education of girls in South Korea equal to the education offered to boys?

The reality is that South Korea is not just a bad environment for women and
girls - it's bad and getting worse. Their rankings in these categories were
some of the lowest just a few years ago and have steadily declined each year.

I don't really have time for a point-by-point rebuttal, but the basic point is
this: removing diversity never makes society stronger. Are there benefits for
single-sex activities and education? Of course. Is it 'better' to reduce
students interaction with the opposite sex to almost none in day-to-day
education? The evidence says otherwise.

The issue is always when someone argues for widespread, radical change based
on the wrong goals.

~~~
zeteo
> This is a dangerous idea. Why? Because it starts with the idea that single-
> sex schools are better, then proceed to attempt to prove that point with
> studies

I'm sorry, someone who attempts to prove their point with studies will always
be more persuasive than another's hand waving.

>But attending college and getting better grades is not the goal.

Again, there are many people for whom educational attainment _is_ important.

>Do students who attend same-sex schools [...] push society forward in the
underlying principals of a better civilization? Do they make the world better

I'd say better education is a pretty big component of pushing society forward
and making the world better. Why force everyone to attend co-ed schools? If
some want to attend single-sex schools and this has proven educational
benefits, let them do so.

>For comparison, the United States is ranked 22nd [in the world in gender
equality]

A big part of which has been played by a well-known group of single-sex
schools [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(colleges)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_\(colleges\))

~~~
podperson
We're not actually measuring educational attainment (whatever that is) but
admission into a 4 year college program. This is like measuring the
effectiveness of the speed of your network by how many feet of cable you
bought. Measuring _graduation_ from a 4-year college program would at least be
a measure of attainment of _credentials_ , but this can be gamed simply by
lowering bars. (The campaign against high school drop-out rates has largely
consisted of making it easier to stay and harder to drop out (rather than
actually improve any useful outcomes); the campaign to improve girls' science
scores in Australian schools has largely comprised removing science from the
science curriculum. Educational research is always plagued by these issues.)

Single sex schools clearly helped improve the lot of women in the US (and
other countries). But it's not clear that it was because single sex schools
are better than co-ed (which is at issue) or that they are better than no
schools at all (which appears blindingly obvious).

------
tinco
Note for anyone ready to dismiss based on title alone:

The big idea is not that girls distract boys and boys distract girls, so they
should be apart. The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high
school age learn/are motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting
them and teaching them in different ways could be more effective.

So this is not empirical evidence, but my mom who has been teaching high
school for over 30 years strongly agrees with this. In her opinion the average
boy just can't sit still and needs to be motivated more competitively, whilst
girls benefit from more social engagement.

Of course that analysis is rather crude. There's subtleties there. Of course
boys would benefit from being taught to be more social, and girls would
benefit from being taught to be more competitive. But it's clear that there's
efficiencies to be had here.

For me personally high school felt as a very inefficient time of learning, but
I also had much fun and made many friends with both boys and girls. I wonder
if the research has shown anything there. Do boys who graduate from boys-only
schools work well with girls? What is their opinion on them? And vice versa?

Although I think high school could benefit from efficiency improvements, I
also think high school is an important preparation for growing into a broad-
minded adult. I hope they keep that in mind when the decisions are made.

~~~
XorNot
> The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high school age learn/are
> motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting them and teaching
> them in different ways could be more effective.

This idea is even more harmful. The differences within the group are greater
then the differences between the groups - but by trying to split the
environments along enormously broad divisions, you're ensuring you marginalize
huge swathes of people in addition to creating an unhealthy socialization
environment.

The reality here is once you let in the idea that gender has something to say
about people beyond what their genitals look like, you're letting in any
number of other harmful ideas. It's no coincidence that girl's only
highschools mysteriously lack shop-classes, for example but _always_ have Home
Ec.

~~~
Mikera
It concerns me when people confuse the idea of gender equality and rights
(which I think most reasonable people agree is a good thing) with the idea
that men and women's lives have to be the same in all aspects.

I think it is much more harmful to impose a dogmatic belief that forces
everyone to lead identical, mono-cultured lives and denies individual choice.

What if I _want_ to go to a single-sex school? Who are you to deny me that
choice?

~~~
XorNot
Who's denying it to you? But the same thing you complain abiut ia also
ehxactly what single-sex schools are doing - its not about looking at your
interests and learning style based on your home envitonment, test scores, and
social proclivites to tey and find an optimum learning environmwnt for you -
its about seeing if you have a penis and declaring that _obviously_ you must
'learn competitively' and its very important we advocate you running around
outside. Because _clearly_ girls don't do those things.

I'm sadly never surprised that the cinclusions people draw about gendered
education just so happen to reinforce societal gender stereotypes.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I don't like single-sex schools because I don't think they promote healthy
gender relations. I recall reading that boys at single-sex schools had much
worse success in relationships.

I also don't like them because they're hell for trans kids. Your education
record will out you because your school was single-sex, and you can't
transition in school or at least daren't try.

But the needs of minorities don't matter, right?

The thing with girls being more likely to study science actually applies to
me. I dropped Physics this year partly because of grades but also I didn't
like the male-dominated environment. Had I been to an all-girls' school, maybe
that'd be different. But I'm trans, so I'd be stuck at an all-boys' school.
That'd be awful.

------
pessimizer
What if single- _race_ schools led to somewhat better outcomes, sometimes,
according to some metrics, highly contingent on the skill of the instructor
and highly variable depending on location?

What about schools segregated by political party or religion?

~~~
smtddr
Indeed, which brings us to...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education)

I thought we, as a society, already concluded that separate cannot be equal.
But I have to say, for some reason I don't feel the same negativity towards
separation by gender as I do by race. I just think that if we've already
decided that divide-by-race is a bad idea then how can divide-by-gender be
good? I have a funny feeling that divide-by-political-stance, and race, is
already happening due to divide-by-wealth via school fees. I wonder what the
dominate race & political-affiliations are at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.
versus [http://www.csueastbay.edu/](http://www.csueastbay.edu/)

~~~
Dylan16807
That struck down the doctrine of 'separate but equal' as a lie. But it wasn't
the separate that was the problem, it was the equal.

If you could truly prove that you could have separate _and better_ , Brown v.
Board of Education would not apply.

------
antihero
I think this study misses a lot of the point. Sure, schooling is about grades,
but it's also a huge part of childhood and teenagerhood, bonding and
interacting and meeting people and having experiences. So whilst the grades
went up, how well socially adapted were people and how good were they at
bonding with the other sex?

Of course this also misses the colossal point of enforcing the gender binary,
which is terrible and leads to a broken, sexist society.

Single sex schools are, quite frankly, unethical.

~~~
sillysaurus2
_Single sex schools are, quite frankly, unethical._

Teens will find ways to socialize with each other whether or not they're in a
single-sex environment. It's not unethical to split based on "this group
responds better to these methods of teaching."

School isn't the epicenter of all social interaction during a person's youth,
nor should it be. Taking this view leads to teen suicide, because if teens are
convinced that all of life is just like cruel highschool then they'd rather
not live at all. (If your highschool years weren't cruel, then I'd imagine
it's hard to understand why this is true. Take it from someone who was
hunted.)

~~~
stdbrouw
> School is not, and should not be, the epicenter of all social interaction
> during a person's youth.

How can it not be the epicenter of social interaction for young people when
it's where they spend the majority of their waking hours? How many people did
you meet in high school vs. how many in extracurricular activities?

~~~
sillysaurus2
EDIT: The lack of compassion for outliers is an alarming indication of the
general attitude toward education at large. Outliers are who advance the
world.[1] If you don't help them, then you'll live in a poorer country. If
splitting by gender is the most basic thing we can do toward that end with
proven results, and "... But socialization! (except for those I don't care
about)" is standing in the way, then the situation is pretty grim.

I'm going to bow out of this conversation now.

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/wisdom.html](http://paulgraham.com/wisdom.html)

~~~
stdbrouw
> Outliers are who advance the world.

But everyone has to live in it. You're not asking for compassion, you're
asking schools to do something that might be advantageous for a minority at
the expense of everyone else. How does that make the world a better or more
advanced place?

I sympathize with what you're saying, but surely there's better solutions here
than single-sex schools.

------
tgb
Seriously HN - is this site incapable of ever updating its beliefs in even the
slightest way based off of genuine evidence? Ignore the fact that this article
is written on an obviously politcally motivated source - in fact ignore the
whole article. You don't need it, since they're providing you with the actual
studies backing up their beliefs. If you don't like this view, then your
critiques had better be of the articles they cite, not of this sumamry
article!

I can agree that seeing a grade improvement is not, by itself, enough to get
me say we should separate classes by gender here in the US. But if this
article didn't make you at least consider that option a bit more than it did
before, then you're doing this incorrectly. These are large differences - 0.8
standard deviations increase in scores! They are verified over a large body of
students and it was actually randomly assigned. This is great! There are so
many questions that I'd pay to have an actual study of that caliber done to
answer.

Again, it's not the whole answer. Not everywhere is Seoul and not all students
are the same. (In fact, the given article agrees: "Our only concern with the
article is with its underlying premise: namely, that either single-gender or
coed must be "best." We believe that premise is fundamentally mistaken. The
single-gender format is better for some students, and coed is better for
others,"). I'm not saying you should be completely convinced by every article
that gets posted here that happens to have a scholarly citation. But if this
site continues to automatically and consistently dismiss these things just as
a matter of course, then how can we ever hope to learn new things and change
our views? There's something here. "Grades aren't everything" doesn't mean
that "grades aren't important," which doesn't mean "this study is pointless."

------
malange
The studies carry evidence that confirms the hypothesis that single-sex school
is more effective than coed schools in reaching some (I assume there are
probably more) goals of basic education, which is academic achievement. Many
comments noted that social achievement is not measured. Aside from the fact
that more studies have to be done to further confirm the hypothesis or negate
it, this one seems to focus completely on sex segregation. It does not take a
closer look at why coed schools are worse than single-sex schools in academic
results. What I think matters more is to find out the where, when, who, why
and what of coed and single-sex schools before pointing out a how (to fix
academic performance). With that, we will, for instance, be able to eventually
adapt the coed model to provide the same or better academic results than
single-sex. I prefer neither model. I was educated for 6 years in a single-sex
environment and 8 years in a coed. I can attest that I had a better academic
performance in single-sex than coed, but that should not (or could not) be the
main point of discussion as I explained above. The goal is to understand de
5Ws and 1H of the education system and this article fails to do so.

------
kken
An article comparing single-sex vs. coed on a domain called
singlesexschools.org? Without even looking into the background of this: Can we
really expect the article not to be biased?

~~~
spindritf
All humans and all of their work is biased in some way. You can never expect
anything to be unbiased.

 _Without even looking into the background of this_

The fact that someone made up their mind on an issue doesn't by itself mean
they're wrong though.

~~~
ronaldx
Unreliable witnesses can be right, indeed, but being correct doesn't make
evidence a reliable source - you can be right for the wrong reasons.

Having a stated belief upfront puts your work in obvious danger of
confirmation bias[0]. It can and should be assumed that you will promote
results which support your belief and ignore results that don't.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)

~~~
thaumasiotes
Consider the following scenario:

1\. I wonder about the effectiveness of single-sex vs. coed schooling.

2\. I do a bunch of research.

3\. I conclude that single-sex education is significantly more effective, and
that students are being harmed by the dominant paradigm of coed schooling.

4\. I establish a website to promote my views, and I call it
"singlesexschools.org".

5\. I display, on my website promoting single-sex schools, the arguments and
papers that convinced me single-sex schools were a good idea.

Pretty much anyone who possesses knowledge will be able to give you a "stated
belief up front" if you ask them about it. That doesn't mean they started with
the belief. Knowledge causes beliefs. In my five-step scenario, what should I
have named my website?

~~~
ronaldx
Choosing the singlesexschools.org domain would be poor judgement on your part;
as would publishing a biased report without reference to how you ensured its
veracity. If your original research was complete and unbiased, you ought to be
proud to show that in your work and in your choice of headline domain.

The idealist but misguided situation you describe is not the case here,
anyway. This reaseach was published by a group formerly known as the NASSPE -
the National Association for Single Sex Public Education.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Choosing the singlesexschools.org domain would be poor judgement on your
> part

No, it wouldn't. Someone more interested in dismissing my ideas than in
learning what they were could just as easily say "Effective Schooling is a
known advocate of single-sex education, and can therefore not be trusted to
report on the issue" (indeed, people say this all the time). The fact that
someone is willing to tell you what his ideas are doesn't automatically make
them bad ones. And everyone choosing to talk about an issue is going to have
an opinion on it.

------
croisillon
I'd be interested to see the poster's comment about this article: what did
this bring you to think? While the site seems indeed very strongly opinionated
from the onset, if the studies are right it's probably interesting to reflect
about the topic and especially about the reasons behind studies' results.

If I had to put kids in a single-sex school I can imagine that some pupils
would get more focused in their work and hence overall get a better mark. My
worry though is for their emotional intelligence and ability to grow-up in a
mixed world. School is quite a big chunk of kids' life nowadays, where they
learn much more than math and history, but also socializing, playing,
listening, collaboration, respect. If all those notions are taught only within
their own gender, what would/will be their reaction outside this world?

------
lazerwalker
I'm shocked that research published by the "National Association for Single
Sex Public Education" found that single sex education was most effective.
Shocked.

Maybe this is a topic worth discussing; if that's the case, though, give me
something not so clearly biased.

~~~
sampo
That was just a web page. The research was published in a journal _Demography_
, by 3 researchers from the University of Pennsylvania:

[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-012-0157-1](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-012-0157-1)

------
ivanhoe
Considering the domain on which this was published we can safely presume that
the author did his best NOT to mention any possible social/emotional side-
effects. How well socialized are the kids from those two groups? How happy are
they? How many emotional/sexual relationships did they have and how satisfied
with their sexual life have they been? How many of them are suicidal (huge
problem in South Korea)? And just for the fun, what's the ratio between hetero
and gay people before and after the school? :)

------
intenex
Aside from all the other points, I'm curious to see further longitudinal data
on the comparative success of these students once they enter college compared
to their peers at college.

Further, it'd be interesting to see their eventual success against those who
went to the coed schools.

It'd also be interesting to run a self-assessment of the single-sex students
vs the coed students asking them a broad array of well-being questions, e.g.
their happiness, level of fulfillment and satisfaction in life, etc.

Interesting starting point, but like pointed out flawed to say single-sex
schools are better overall purely based on this one metric. The only thing
that can be said here is that single-sex schools drive greater admission to
colleges than coed schools in Seoul, given the way these schools are
administered there.

Things that definitely need to be addressed - what are the differences in the
coed vs single-sex schools these people go to? Are the single-sex schools
taught differently at all? And if so, how? Why does Seoul have a single-sex vs
coed separation in the first place?

------
ollysb
So we're reducing children's lives to the pursuit of some bullshit test
scores?! Maybe the absence of the opposite sex in their lives heightens their
malleability? i.e. there's an implicit threat here, If you don't do well on
tests then when you enter the real world no girl will want you(or vica versa).

~~~
VLM
Certainly, the modern education system is primarily focused on
authoritarianism and conformity rather than skills training and education. It
would be very interesting to add that as a dimension to the study, are SS
grads more or less likely than coed grads to vote for a 3rd party or become an
active member of a major party or support the militarization of police etc.

Its possible but unlikely there is a real difference in ability to learn based
solely on genital shape. Probably more likely the SS grads are somehow less
individualistic, more socialized, better indoctrinated, and more conformity
oriented, tangentially including better academic results as one of many mere
side effects.

In that case rather than opening a giant can of worms WRT segregation, it
would be much simpler to increase nationalist movements. Mandate saying the
pledge of allegiance, uniforms, (one single) youth psuedo-political
organization, military marching D+C in gym class, institute the 5 minutes hate
and two way telescreens, encourage the rewriting of history in writing class,
bland conservative blather in lit classes instead of real lit, etc. Not saying
the cultural effects would be an improvement, but if all you want is great
test scores this might be a less controversial method.

------
memracom
The bit about Fairhurst High School is one of those garbled things that you
get by playing Chinese whispers.

In fact John Fairhurst was the well-regarded head teacher at Shenfield High
School in Shenfield, Essex, a small town in the commuter belt east of London.
You can read more in this article that I found on Google:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lNLliSZ...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lNLliSZ42EEJ:web.alfredstate.edu/library/English%2520Comp%2520Articles%2520Spring%25202008/Sax%2520article.doc+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

He has since retired but not before serving as president at the Association of
School & College Leaders. And he has regularly been featured in the British
press commenting on the need for more innovative ways to educate kids.

------
derleth
From TazeTSchnitzel, who has been hellbanned:

BEGIN

I don't like single-sex schools because I don't think they promote healthy
gender relations. I recall reading that boys at single-sex schools had much
worse success in relationships.

I also don't like them because they're hell for trans kids. Your education
record will out you because your school was single-sex, and you can't
transition in school or at least daren't try.

But the needs of minorities don't matter, right?

The thing with girls being more likely to study science actually applies to
me. I dropped Physics this year partly because of grades but also I didn't
like the male-dominated environment. Had I been to an all-girls' school, maybe
that'd be different. But I'm trans, so I'd be stuck at an all-boys' school.
That'd be awful.

END

------
emocakes
I was really hoping for the article to have some pretty graphs.

