Single Gender Classrooms

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Recommended: Single sex education and co education

Single-gender education, more commonly known as single-sex education, is the practice of teaching boys and girls in separate classes or schools. In many countries single-gender education is the norm due to religious or cultural beliefs. The practice has only become popular in the United States public schools within the last decade. However, single-sex education has been continually in practice in many private schools across the nation.
History of Single-Gender Education in U.S. Public Schools
At the time that the nation was founded, only boys received public schooling while the girls were educated at home, if at all. A cultural shift occurred in the early 1800s, allowing girls to attend school in all-girl classes; however, they only received instruction either before or after the standard school day for the boys. The practice of educating boys and girls together began in several communities in the early 1900s for economic reasons. They also noticed that the girls exerted a moderating influence on boy’s behavior (Bracey, 2006), which is now an argument in favor of creating single-gender classes.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, only private schools in the United States had been exclusively all boy and all girl schools, even though there was not a law forbidding the practice in the public schools until the 1972 passage of Title IX legislation. Title IX made gender segregation illegal in almost every aspect of school, including athletics, medical services, admission practices, career counseling, and the treatment of students. Federal funds would be withheld from schools that violated Title IX (Brake, 2001). Title IX pushed the trend of co-education for almost 30 years and is believed to have had a significant national impact ...

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...g single-sex schools in the U.S.:trends, court cases, and conflicting laws. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 356-362.
Chadwell, D. (2010). New Voices Single-Gender Classes Can Respond to the Needs of Boys and Girls. ASCD Express, 78-80.
Michael Robert Younger, M. W. (2006). Review of Single-Sex Teaching in Coeducational Secondary School in the United Kingdom. American Educational Research, 579-620.
Piechura-Couture, K., Heins, E., & Tichenor, M. (2011). The Boy Factor: Can SIngle-Gender Classes Reduce the Over-Representation of Boys in Special Education? Journal of Instructional Psychology, 255-263.
Sax, L. (2007). Boys adrift: The five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men. New York: Basic Books.
Whitmore, R., & Bailey, S. M. (2010). Gender Gap : Are Boys Being Shortchanged in K - 12 Schooling? Education Next, 53-61.

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