Young Minds in Single-Sex Classes

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Young Minds in Single-Sex Classes During the late 18th century girls were steadily accepted into town schools or some form of common school for boys and girls. The first introduction of public schools was in Western Europe and led by certain Protestant groups. This particular group felt it necessary for girls to be taught to read the Bible as well as boys. This educational movement became increasingly popular in Scotland and the northern parts of England. For centuries boys and girls have been attending school together. Although studies have shown that single-sex education can be beneficial the majority of public schools to day are coeducational. A closer look will be taken in this paper to examine the benefits and draw backs to single-sex education and how it can be utilized in today’s educational facilities. Valerie E. Lee and Helen M. Marks,1992 address some of the reasons why Single-sex education has taken a back seat to coeducation in their article Who Goes Where? Choice of Single-Sex and Coeducational Independent Secondary Schools, . A decline in single-sex schools is seen during the sixties and seventies in private schools. The reason for this is people questioned the sexual equality it provided girls. It was thought that single-sex schools would hinder the student’s ability to adapt to a coeducational world. It was seen as archaic. The need for so many private schools wasn’t there when public schools were financially more accessibility. During the earlier period of public schooling many of the schools were either all boys’ schools or all girls. Consequently, the educational standard in girls’ schools was second-rate compared to boys. Federal legislation on educational equity prohibited single-sex public schools for this very reason. Early women’s rights sought to unite boy’s schools with girls in order to bridge the gap between lesser education standers
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