Single-sex education

1- Students from single-sex schools are better academically than mixed-sex schoolsThe first reason for that is the environment in which students are inserted. A study made by two professors, Lea Hubbard (University of San Diego) and Amanda Datnow (University of Southern California), entitled "Do Single-Sex Schools Improve the Education of Low-Income and Minority Students? An Investigation of California's Public Single-Gender Academies" shows the students opinions relative to the single sex school environment. A boy stated:"When there's girls in here, there's gonna be less learning and, you know, there's gonna be more distractions' cause, look, when I'm sitting right here... and a fine girl walks in, then I'm gonna turn around and start messing with them."(1)The teachers also noticed how the students behaved differently in the setting:"Several teachers also commented that the setting made certain actions unlikely. When boys did not have girls present, they felt less need to show off, act out, or engage in attention-getting behavior. Likewise, girls who did not have boys present did not have to vie for their attention. Instead of competing with each other, girls learned to work collaboratively, bond as friends, and became more focused on their academic work."(2)My point is, without the presence of the opposite sex, students are more able to concentrate on their academics. Another study that supports my argument is "Single-sex versus coeducational schooling: A systematic review", made by the US department of Education. It has researches from all over the world about single sex/cooed education. On All-Subject Achievement Test Scores, which "have been defined as scores indicating the composite mastery of specific skills or scholastic content areas (i.e., mathematics, verbal, science, etc.) acquired over a restricted span of time", shows that, of the nine studies examined, six reported results supporting single sex schools while only one reported results supporting coeducational schools.(I was not able to copy/paste the tables from this study. Please understand and forgive me.)Other subject is Self-Concept, which can be defined as “the totality of a complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence”. Of seven studies, 4 reported results favoring single-sex schooling and the other 3 reported null results(indifferent). That means that SS schools have a better environment which favours the intellectuality of their students.(3)The study also shows that it is less likely to people who went to SS schools to be unemployed. Because of the better academics they will be the best professionals to be hired and hardly will be unemployed. Even though there were a lot of null results in this study, the results favoring single-sex educational were in most cases higher than the favoring coeducation.2- Students from single-sex schools don't have any sociability problemAgain I will use the same studies from the past argument and state that the environment whereupon the students are inserted does not cause any problem. In my preview argument, I showed teachers from a study stating that the environment from single sex schools was beneficial for both girls and boys academically and socially. Although some researches favours CE schools on Self-Esteem, the US department studies also shows that SS schools students have higher Educational and Career Aspirations. This shows, at some, point, that students from SS schools have a high self-esteem. They know they can be at the top of their careers, they know they can be the best, and most of all, they want it. (3)The study shows other researches showing that Delinquency is lower on SS school students. This does not mean that CE schools student are more delinquent than SS, just shows that they have an environment less favourable to develop a delinquent. As stated before, the lack of the opposite sex favours friendship over competition between the classmates. Boys won't be fighting for a girls won't be doing crazy things for a boy's love. (3)Girls in SS schools recognize better their role in society as Working Women than girls in CE schools. And the result for boys is the same, both for SS and CE schools. This ends the myth about the machismo in SS boy schools.(3)One research also showed that CE girls are more likely to have Eating Disorders. CE school girls need to be "hot" for their male classmates and sometimes they think their is a necessity to be thiner, while in SS girl schools don't have this problem.(3)Another research from the study also shows that girls from SS schools statistically choose College Majors which are gender-mixed rather than predominantly female more than girls CE schools.(3)On Sex role Stereotyping on girls only, one study favoured SS schooling and the other one favoured CE schooling, showing that NO, SS schooling does not creates in the students mind a stereotype for their work environment.(3) The other study showed how girls felt more comfortable in a SS school than in a CE school. An interesting point of view was this one:"You can come like in the morning.. and you don't have to put like make up on because we're girls and if there were guys here...[We would be thinking],'Oh my god, I can't go like this."(4)This comproves that social stereotypes, especially with women, are less likely to happen in SS schools than in CE schools. 3- Personal argumentAs I stated in round 1, I study in a SS school. There is no problem at all with me or with my friends. We don't stereotype women, some of my friends have or had girlfriends, and it has a different climate or environment from the one in CE schools. This was the first school I felt I fitted in. An only male or female environment makes it easier for you to bond with other people, to make new friends. And academically, my school is considered the best one in Brazil(I'm Brazilian).(5)Sources:1http://www.jstor.org...2 idem3 http://files.eric.ed.gov...4http://www.jstor.org...5 http://en.wikipedia.org...