Separate and equal?

As a legal principle, separate-but-equal died in the 50s and 60s. That’s because, particularly in the case of racial segregation, it was recognized that separate is, in fact, rarely equal. Whether racial desegregation of schools and the like accomplished everything that was desired, it was what needed doing.

Sexual segregation is a more problematic kettle of fish. The days are not so long gone when separation of genders, academically, was a cover for routing kids into gender-appropriate skills and careers — happy home-makers for women; athletes and scientists and businessmen for the guys. The gender desegregation of our classes, the Womens Lib movement, and the decline of single-sex institutions of higher learning have, in general, been seen as good things.

But there’s a lot of evidence out there that differences in maturation and in learning modalities between boys and girls makes gender-segregated classrooms a good idea, at least in terms of helping kids learn their academics. While there’s a strain of thought that wants to treat each gender as identical, that is, on the face of it, just plain erroneous — there are clear physical and biochemical differences between the genders (and vive le difference!), and to think that these play no cognitive role is politically correct but scientifically dubious.

Of course, the great danger is that the recognition of differences becomes overplayed — that we return to the days of believing that all women are best suited to keep house, or that all men are better as athletes and politicians and whatever. Recognizing differences doesn’t mean that the conclusions of such differences can be so sweepingly generalized, let alone understood.

All of which is a long introduction to an article on how public schools are finding that academic gender segregation is an interesting idea whose time may have come.

“Usually it’s the guys that distract all the whole class. They’re usually the class clowns,” said Kristielle, who entered the seventh grade last week. “With no guys in the school, I can know we will really get busy without much distraction.”
At least 11 single-sex public schools will open this fall in six states ? Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, South Carolina and Oregon. Advocates say separating the sexes can improve learning by easing the peer pressure that can lead to misbehavior as well as low self-esteem among girls.
[…] The number of U.S. public schools offering single-sex classes jumped from four to 140 in the past eight years, Sax said. At 36 of those schools, at least one grade will have only single-sex classes this year. Advocates said they expect the number to increase now that the U.S. Education Department has announced plans to change its enforcement of the landmark discrimination law Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in schools.

Of course, it’s possible to overstate such things.

“John Kerry, George W. Bush, his father and Al Gore all went to all-boys schools. We don’t think that’s a coincidence,” said Dr. Leonard Sax, a Maryland physician and psychologist who founded a nonprofit group that advocates single-sex public education. “We think single-sex education really empowers girls and boys from very diverse backgrounds to achieve.”

Depending on who you talk to, I’m not sure everyone would agree with all of the above folk as exemplars of the value of single-sex schools.

Some women’s groups and the American Civil Liberties Union say segregation of any kind is wrong. “We think segregation has historically always resulted in second-class citizens,” said Terry O’Neill, a National Organization for Women vice president.

And that’s a valid concern — though it’s a concern as to how the system might be abused rather than whether such schools actually work.

Sax said separating the sexes allows teachers and administrators to focus on the different ways boys and girls learn. Girls, he said, learn better in quiet classrooms and intimate schools where they are on a first-name basis with their teachers. Boys learn better when teachers challenge them to answer rapid-fire questions and address them by their last names.

One question would be whether such behavioral differences are cultural vs. biological. If the former, it might be better to try to correct the societal forces that lead to such behavioral differences. On the other hand, it may not be possible to tell, and if it improves academic learning, that’s the important thing — or is it?

Single-sex schools also reduce the pressure to preen for boyfriends or girlfriends, Sax said. “Single-sex schools, in ways that matter, are much more like the real world. Because unless you are a model or an actress, how you look is not the most important thing in your life,” Sax said.

I went to an all-boys high school for a year and a half. I don’t know that my academic education was any improved by the experience — though I suspect my social education was likely hampered. My sense is that while a single-sex education may reduce the opportunity for social mingling (and thus preening and other “unimportant” things), it has a distorting effect when you finally get the genders back together (“Look! Girls!”).

As to the “real world” similarities, I’m not sure that’s true. How one looks — dresses, etc. — is an important part of the business world, as is learning to deal with both genders equally. To that extent, separation only heightens the awareness of differences, and the assumptions one then makes about it. Is a man more likely to treat a woman as an equal when there’s been a state-sanctioned demonstration that they are not (regardless of whether different means better or not).

I dunno. I know that, already, Katherine plays differently with little boys vs little girls, though she plays well with both. I think either gender segregation in (some) schooling or integration in all has its benefits and drawbacks. It will be interesting to see what opportunities Katherine has in that, and what decisions we make about it.