The Positives and Negatives Aspects of Single-Sex Schooling and Mixed-Sex Schooling

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Recommended: disafvantages of single sex schools over mixed schools

Probably the single sex and mixed schools’ issue has been discussed and debated in the UK more than in any country in the world. In the last four decades, in Great Britain, the total number of single-sex schools has reduced steeply. However, demand for single sex education for some courses is rising recently(Archer,2004,P.50). This essay will investigate whether coeducational schools are better than single sex schools or not.

There are a number of advantages to both single-sex and mixed-sex schools but to begin with, here are some of the benefits of single-sex schooling. Firstly, according to some statistics both boys and girls obtain higher marks in their final exams. A new UK-based investigation emphasised that pupils operated remarkably better in separate education as shown by the National Consortium for Examination Results(Kelly,1996,P.15). Another example can be seen from the table below

Both sexes performed better in the single-sex schools in all school types (Independent, Selective, Grant-maintained, Comprehensives and others).

Secondly, traditional subjects appear less in single-sex schooling than co-education schooling. It has been known for ages, some subjects are typically for men such as design, woodwork and metalwork. In addition, there are a few subjects such as chemistry, physics and mathematics in which the number of male students outweigh the number of female students. However, there are also a number of subjects which are dominated by females such as needlework, cookery and sociology. In addition, there are a few subjects which are studied by both sexes although predominantly by women. Commerce, foreign languages and music subjects are examples of subject that girls scholars select(see graph 1 and table 2...

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...ducation system also has some disadvantages. First of all, students in secondary co-educational schools in particular have more distractions than students in single-sex schools. During the adolescence period, when pupils are starting to think about creating a relationship with girlfriends and boyfriends they will be distracted from the educational demands, thereby affecting students’ results.

Moreover, gender stereotype is still clear in mixed-sex schooling whereas single-sex schooling it is less important.

All in all, this paper examined for both sides of the issue. Taking all things into account, on the one hand, single-sex education has affected on academic performance. On the other hand, mixed-sex education has affected on socio-economic and entrance criteria. I think mixed-sex schools with some separate subjects classes is the best education for both sexes.

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