What’s the value of single-sex schools?

After decades of showing approval, single-sex schools are developing and supported by many people specifically in some urban areas offering benefits to students from low-income families. Research on the value of such schools has been mixed. People who publicly supports a particular cause say that single-sex community permit teachers to balance to the learning strategies of boys and girls, while protecting from the interruptions of dealing with the other gender. Rivalries say teaching the genders differently can develop weak labels, and that different facilities are inherently unequal.

Countries like Thailand and Japan where co-ed classes are the regulations, single-sex schools had important effects for the success of both boys and girls, but not all in the same path. In Thailand, girls excel better in single-sex school compared to co-ed, but boys didn’t have the same thing. On the other hand, both genders of students in Japan achieved lower results in single-sex schools. The distinctions are associated to the specific purposes of the schools. In Thailand, a small quantity for girls in Bangkok provides elite education for girls, while co-ed schools provide more opportunities for boys. In Japan, single-sex schools tend to be private, and provide a direction to private universities without the difficult entrance exams of public universities.

Single-sex schools in Japan and Thailand are “perceived as very distinct from the average school.” Whatever the positive or negative influences the schools have on the success of students, they may be due more to those styles than to gender separation.

L. Gershon