Despite the views put forward by Diane Urbina, there are many experts and parents who believe that single-sex public schools are not such a good idea. An argument presented by Urbina and others concerns closing gender gaps through isolation of each gender. This has also not been supported by several studies, despite Urbina’s far reaching claims. Lee, Niederle and Kang (2014) investigated levels of competitiveness, and found that girls’ levels of competitiveness stays largely the same, whether they attend single sex schools or co-educational schools.
The explanation offered by Urbina providing reasons for better performance of student in single sex school refers to the idea that boys and girls have differing patterns of learning and development. While Urbina did not provide references regarding this for analysis, it is still not a strong argument because it is dealing with each gender as a collective entity. Indiidual learning styles are more important than gender when it comes to educational approach (Ford & Chen, 2000). These points are echoed by Huston (2015), who noted that in addition to social and moral reasons for not separating genders, empirical exploration of actual variables in learning styles would be impeded by a primary focus on gender rather than actual learning styles and strategies.
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"Single-Sex Schools".
While girls may, on average, be better than boys at language development, this is not true of all girls. Should girls that appear to have male oriented learning patterns then attend boy’s schools, and vice versa? What about children who voice gender dysphoria, or the feeling that they align with a gender other than their biologically assigned gender? Much like the debate regarding transsexuals and their choice in using public washrooms, gender isolation of children for the purpose of supporting their academic performance seems to miss the point regarding functionality while raising a host of difficult questions that may serve to alienate students, their parents and transsexual community which advocates choice in self-representation.
- Ford, N., & Chen, S. Y. (2000). Individual differences, hypermedia navigation, and learning: an empirical study. Journal of educational multimedia and hypermedia, 9(4), 281-311.
- Huston, A. C. (2015). Thoughts on “Probability values and human values in evaluating single-sex education”. Sex Roles, 72(9-10), 446-450.
- Lee, S., Niederle, M., & Kang, N. (2014). Do single-sex schools make girls more competitive?. Economics Letters, 124(3), 474-477.
