Gender Stereotypes In Single-Sex Schools

Introduction

Boys and girls grow and learn differently. “One is not better than the other -- they are just inherently different”(One classroom, one gender, boys and girls learn differently and thrive in single-sex classrooms, says education activist Betsy Perlman). So because of the differences between boys and girls, single sex education appeared to meet the needs of different learning styles of boys and girls. The definition of single-sex education made by U.S. Department of Education is “education at the elementary, secondary, or postsecondary level in which males or females attend school exclusively with members of their own sex”( Xiong). According to relevant research, there are more than 500 public schools in America offer single-sex

Firstly, students from single-sex schools are less affected by gender stereotype when they choose courses. According to the information from nobelprize.org website, there are only 48 women in total who have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2016. In contrast of that, there have been 825 male winners of the Nobel Prize. This data shows a huge gender gap on science field. But students who study in single-sex schools do not affected by this gender stereotype. According to a research made by singleschool.org website, “Girls at single-sex schools were more likely to take non-traditional courses -- courses which run against gender stereotypes -- such as advanced math and physics” (part 2). Advanced math and physics are not courses that schools always offer, they only offer to students who have extreme interests and superb performance on specific subjects. So girls from single-sex schools show more interests and higher performance on math and science compare with girls from coed

One is single- sex education can help student achieve higher academic achievement. The other is single-sex education can offer students better academic environment.

The disadvantages of single-sex education The students from single-sex schools do not get prepared enough as the students from coed schools in facing the real world, because they are not good at handle the relationships with opposite gender and they are hard to establish a complete gender role in single-sex environment. Firstly, children spend their “formative years in schools developing skills that will help them maintain relationships throughout their lives” (Blake). However, some social interaction between boys and girls do not occur in schools, and this will make students from single-sex schools find it difficult to build meaningful friendships and even successful romantic relationships in the future. Besides, the research made by Dr. Lynn Liben in 2011 shows that “there is strong evidence of negative consequences accompanying segregating by sex and that doing so promotes the development of negative gender stereotypes”(Blake). These biased opinions will make students from single-sex schools difficult to get along with opposite