Single-Sex Instruction

Do students do best in single-sex classrooms? Examining the behavior of the wealthy as an indicator, it appears so. The rich like to put their children in private, single-sex schools. But what do they know? Do kids behave better and learn more in single-sex classrooms? Do both girls and boys benefit from keeping the other sex out of classroom competition and collaborations and social interactions?

Do kids behave better and learn more in single-sex classrooms? Only occasionally. Most of the time K-12 students benefit from classrooms with both sexes. Arizona State University psychologists (Fabes et al.) have aggregated studies that show these classrooms exhibiting more learning and less acting out behaviors and less learning and more behavior problems in single-sex classrooms. They believe that bringing boys and girls together early creates better understandings of the opposite sex, a softer approach to sex roles, and less misunderstandings between them.

I speculate that teacher leadership, not the composition of the students, has a lot to do with the good outcomes of mixed-sex classes. Mixing boys and girls, per se, does not create good outcomes and without teacher leadership may create quite negative outcomes such as bullying. If the students fall into the high risk category (low income, poor family history, low achievement) teachers or facilitators need to act even more vigilantly to prevent problems. I have facilitated group therapy for inner city teens in a diversion program as well as teaching inner city high school. In both of these high risk situations, the normal rules don’t seem to apply, and I have had much better (anecdotal) experience in single-sex male groups. Why might this be? Low-functioning, and how shall we say it gently, adolescent boys without much impulse control see less reason to act out in a single-sex environment. The boys don’t need to challenge the male therapist’s authority when all are of equal status and the therapist holds power over them—the keys to graduating from the program. Throw a couple of girls into the diversion program and the dynamic changes. Now the boys want to raise their status over one another. They jockey for position as they try to impress the girls, engaging in bravado, clowning, and attention seeking. The group becomes much more difficult to control. The same change happens in an all-male high school credit recovery summer school program when a few girls are added to the mix. These high school seniors, usually boasting a history of behavior problems and poor academic skills are banded together by the school district for a last-chance opportunity to pass a class or two and graduate. The students, typically 18- or 19-year-old males work effectively and without incident until a female or two joins them. (These classes are typically 90 to 100 percent male.) Then, like what happens in the diversion program, the credit recovery group descends into anarchy. Boys claw each other for status and challenge the teacher’s authority. Earlier, as a single-sex group, they felt no need to do this.

Most boys do not and have not attended diversion programs or credit recovery programs. Most boys interact with girls in the average classroom and do just fine. It is not the interaction itself that creates the outcomes we desire. It is teacher leadership. Teachers ignore overly exuberant boys and call on girls to answer questions and dissuade boys from yelling out all the answers. Teachers facilitate group work, forcing boys and girls to work together. Teachers lead and model democratic decision making, rejecting the slower and less efficient consensus style favored by girls. Top-down leadership enables mixed-sex groups to work.

In summary, I am hoping researchers will examine two areas of study. First, if mixed-sex schooling is superior for at-risk youth, why have I had better results with all-male groups? Second, do the teacher’s skills contribute more to the success of the classroom than the sex or sexes of the children?