Single-Sex Education: Separate but Efficient?

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Recommended: Influence of gender in learning

Have schools been teaching their students the wrong way for years? Apparently, coeducation schools have not been as sensitive about genders as single-gender schools have been. It is necessary for schools to be geared toward certain genders because both male students and female students learn differently. Due to the fact that the biology of male and female students is an immense contributor to these differences, it needs to be understood and exercised. Differences of the two genders can be used to many school systems’ advantages. Gender is still not quite declared as being a factor in development either for educators. Relating to the way that males and females are taught, methods utilized should be different because their thought processes are different, their natural biologics are distinctive, and coeducational settings have proven to be ineffective, if not worse, to students’ performance in schools.

Foremost, schools need to be better adaptive for certain genders because both comprehend ideas differently. According to Gurian, high testosterone improves a male’s performance on spatial exams, but worsens scores on verbal exams. Additionally, estrogen improves standardized testing and class exams when at high levels in females (Gurian 29). Interestingly, evidence suggests that single sex instruction is beneficial to both male and female students for short-term and long-term studies (Hoffman 17). In one study done by Hoffman, grades and standardized test scores were compared between students with single sex instruction and students in coeducational settings. It was found that students taking single sex instruction had higher achievement levels than those students taking coeducational classes (Hoffman 17). Further, the cl...

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...ss if genders were taken into consideration.

Works Cited

Baron-Cohen Simon. The Essential Difference. New York: Basic Books, 2003. Print.

Gurian, Michael. Boys and Girls Learn Differently! San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001. Print.

Hoffman, Bobby H., Barbara A. Badgett, and Robert P. Parker. “The Effect of Single-Sex Instruction in a Large, Urban, At-Risk High School.” September/October 2008. PDF.

Kaminer, Wendy. “The Trouble with Single-Sex Schools.” The Atlantic. N.p. N.d. Web. 13 November 2011.

Leman, Kevin. Making Sense of the Men in your Life. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc., 2000. Print.

Pease, Barbara, and Allan Pease. Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps. Mona Vale: Pease Training International, 2000. Print.

Poole, Robert. Eve’s Rib. New York: Crown Publishers, 1994. Print.

Sax, Leonard. Why Gender Matters. New York: Doubleday, 2005. Print.

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