The Negative Effects Of Mixed Gender Education

During the recent decades, there have been increasing reforms of education system. In particular, the Congress of the United Stated began to carry out No Child Left Behind Act to promote single-sex schooling programs in 2006 (Hayes and Pahlke and Bigler, 2011). Although mixed gender education, also known as coeducation, has still dominated the leading position around the world since the end of 19th century, a debate about whether it is really beneficial for teenagers’ comprehensive development has never stopped. In this essay, it will be argued that a mixed gender education should be avoided.

Firstly, a coeducation system influences negatively student’s academic performance. As both genders are born with unique nature, they have the opposite

Gender stereotypes refer to preconceived notions that males and females are labeled “certain characteristics ” or “particular roles”, limited by their own gender (Heilman, 2001). Taking women as a typical example, a common belief is that they have poorer math skills than man, which is considered to account for their lower scores in math tests (Cherney and Campbell, 2011). In 2001, Huguet and Regner conducted a research on the stereotype threat and claimed that students showed “performance deficits” only under the sex-integrated condition. On the one hand, such gender stereotypes affect teenagers’ character building significantly. Boys are assigned “masculinity” without “feminine” (Cohen, 2009). That is to say, they are more aggressive and competitive, but less cooperative. Girls, nevertheless, suffer from shyness and the lack of self-confidence (Park, Behrman and Choi, 2013). On the other hand, gender stereotypes also affect teenagers’ occupational choices substantially. Males focus on science-related jobs and desire to climb the top level of organizations (Heilman, 2001), while females are guided to choose subsidiary careers, such as secretary or childcare (Cohen, 2009). From these consequences, it is apparent that gender stereotypes of coeducation practice have been proved a threat against students’ comprehensive

On the one hand, the mixed gender education has been discovered strong evidence against teenagers’ learning performance. On the other hand, this practice also makes it difficult to promote their emotional and social developments. Even though some proponents put forward several “advantages”, it is not truly beneficial for students. Nevertheless, if doing so, adolescents will keep stressful and complicated contact with the opposite sex and be stuck in unequal academic environment. As a result, it is better to avoid the mixed gender education