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HOLD THE SUGAR

Study: Single-Sex Schools Push Girls to Pursue Math & Science

They choose the 'masculine' subjects at greater rates than their peers in mixed-sex schools, says researcher

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by Dain Fitzgerald

Staff Writer t

Image: underthepyramids.com

In news that's sure to set off some measure of cognitive dissonance among progressives, a (female) researcher has found that single-sex schools do a better job than their mixed-sex counterparts of encouraging girls to study the hard sciences.

Economist Chris Dillow - who also happens to be a Marxist, go figure - informs us of the study from fellow economist Marta Favara showing that all-female environments help lessen the pressure to "act girly." Why? Because without boys around, there's little point in playing up one's more feminine qualities.

"In the absence of gender pressure," Favara writes, "gender stereotypes lessen and [educational] choices are based mainly on the maximization of their expected monetary pay-off."

And as Favara notes, male-dominated jobs that require the rigor of a math or science background typically pay more than those that don't.

Dillow points to the problem of inequalities occurring quite by accident, often the result of efforts to prevent them. "The creators of mixed schools had no desire to increase gender stereotypes, but this is what has happened," he writes. "Unintended consequences are ubiquitous."

Via Stumbling and Mumbling.
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Are single-sex classes worth having if they encourage girls to study math and science?

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Comments (view in Forum)

  • Tralee
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    All girls and all boys schools are a good idea, the girls in the lower grades get to participate fully without the distractions of the "noisy boys". Sorry guys, but through to about 8th grade you all are crazy and loud, cute and all, but randy, then you settle down for the upper grades. My daughter went to a private all girls school and did very well in the so called masculine subjects. For high school she went to a mixed private school and did well because she had the good foundation through grade 8. And the "noisy boys" is a direct quote, boys attended her Junior School through 3rd grade and then go on to an all boys school. Thus, in 4th grade the "noisy boys" were gone.
  • bsking
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    while I'm an advocate for separating boys and girls for their schooling... that is not found except in private schools and I think that's where the advantage comes in as far as quality education.
    in other words I don't know that it's the separation of the genders as much is it a private school
  • Tralee
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    @bsking Actually several schools in NYC and I believe in Chicago, public charter schools, have tried this, especially for low income boys and girls and they have had very good results. Granted, private school for most children is a benefit, but, my daughter did enjoy not having the noisy boys around all day. I recommend a very good book called "Outliers: The Story of Success" a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell. The whole book is excellent, but toward the back there is a chapter on schools that addresses this issue and others for inner city children, all of which had a high rate of success. It's a good book, worth reading.
  • bsking
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    @Tralee yeah I never doubted Your Enthusiasm or success.... I just wonder how it filters down to those less fortunate that's all
  • Bobolinsky
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    @stepped_in_it-- There's more to "School Choice" than vouchers. Though I think vouchers are worth discussion...

    DC voucher program deserved to be saved
    http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/educat...

    There are also charter schools and cyber schools... and the Left's favorite option to hate... home schooling.

    The idea is to break the virtual monopoly that public education has on the children who are worst served by public education.

    I'll be honest with you. I'm thinking much more about the kids in the failing inner city schools than the religious fools who choose to teach their kids that Noah's Flood was the cause of the dinosaur extinction. I'd rather go overboard a little with too much freedom and then have to grudgingly rein it in where needed later on rather than the other way around.
  • Tralee
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    @Bobolinsky I agree, the DC voucher system was one of the shining lights for the very poor and undereducated, mostly Black, children of the inner city of DC. Too bad the dems. sided with the teachers unions to squash it. It had excellent results.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    @Bobolinsky "... the Left's favorite option to hate ... home schooling." I know three people who are home schooling their kids- two dems and a libertarian. Their children are all very bright and engaging.
  • Bobolinsky
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    @Denizen_Kate-- I'm glad to hear it. The more people learn that homeschooling isn't an option chosen by just the parents who want to teach their kids that Noah's Flood was the cause of the dinosaur extinction
  • u
    Realthinker
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    Last month was a story about the ACLU suing a single gender school because it did not educate the girls as well as the boys. LOL It would be helpful if the leftists in control of our educational system would study and inpliment what really works, as opposed to concentrating on that which promotes their political view and enriches the teacher's unions.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    Yea, but that article also said the girls were discouraged from taking certian subjects, and those who wanted to were told their hormones made them less suited to study certian subjects. That is big difference then just putting them in seperate classes, comments like that are bad for the students self esteem.
  • Rocker
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    I believe that each student needs to be challenged to their aptitude to the fullest. Granted some are more difficult than others (I was). Gender should be baseless. Delving deeper into the psyche however, the pay differential between males and females in the real world could be a deterrent in the stereotypical 'man trades'. The stigma of the 'woman trades' are falling in nursing to males. Ability or capability should not be gender based.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    I remember that story. The public school in question was in a very right wing Christian community, and they were preventing girls from taking advanced math and science classes, which prompted the ACLU's involvement.
  • martydotcom
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    Separating Testosterone and Estrogen during the 5 days week appears to have positive effect on the female gender . Those weekends must be a blast
  • PoliticalSpice
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    Ok, let me share an experiance I had. I was visiting home for some big family gathering. I left the main room to get some quiet time. Didn't last long. As I was sitting there a few 2 girls walked in, talking about something or another in a few minutes they were joined by 2 more. Ages ranged from about 14-16. I forget the subject, but I remember the were having an intelligent conversation about something. Having not seen them in this context before I began thinking "these are very smart girls." After about ten or so minutes a couple of boys, roughly the same age came into the room. As if by silent agreement the coversation went from intelligent to innane. If I hadn't seen it I would n't have beleived it, the girls seemed to lose 20 iq points on the spot. Obviously didn't want to intimidate the boys by seeming smarter. NPC or not I think there is se merit the idea o seperate classes, but if I were still in school i'd be opposed...
  • Real4WheelDrv
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    I think intimidation is the wrong word, but I LOVE your story! I think the reason the convo changed is in part because of gender roles. Feminism and women's lib aside, girls will still use sex and their bodies to attract boys at that age, and at that age that's what most boys want, because for boys too the pressure is to be masculine rather than intellectual, the rare ones that can do BOTH are looked on as supermen.
  • Tralee
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    This is why girls do better in all girls schools, no need to be cute and not ruffle the feathers of boys. After all, teen girls who like boys want the cute one to ask them out, if the cute one, feels that the pretty girl is a brain and is intimidated by that, well, sorry pretty girl, you are SOL. Now, maybe we as parents have a bit more work to do raising our sons and making sure our sons appreciate the intelligence of their Mother! A lot of it is just the very real fact that girls mature faster than boys. I used to be a school mother (in a private school where my son went.) and the boys thru grade 8, were a handful from the age of around 9 or 10 on, they seemed totally incapable to sitting still for any length of time or using the "Indoor" voice. They were a distraction to the girls who were more mature and that was when my husband and I decided to send our daughter to Ursuline, as private girls school. She did fine.
  • kathyparsell
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    @PoliticalSpice
    My vote is... IT'S A GIRL..No male would ever admit that any female would denigrate herself to save a male psyche.
  • View all 6 replies >
  • jamie91
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    I'm sure the fact that all-girls school being private, with smaller class sizes and more discipline probably had no impact on the study at all.
  • bsking
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    @NormalFlora if bill orielly said " girls do better when they dont have to worry about impressing the boys" the hags would be incredulous.
  • jessejaymes
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    All I know is that when I was in high school if they had of separated us I would have dressed like a girl to go to the girls school. There was only one reason to go to school as far as I was concerned. Girls.
  • kirbstomp1
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    I had no other incentive either, girls dressing all sexy, and me chasing tail. That's was highschool. The drop out rate would increase three fold if this is implemented.
  • kirbstomp1
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    I understand our kids are at school to learn and get an education but they are also their to work on their social skills and prepare themselves to enter the real world. You can't separate kids til they graduate high school. Terrible idea.
  • u
    CommonSense
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    And what do kids get told by their teachers when they are chit-chatting in the classroom. "You're not here to socialize, you're here to learn."
    There really is no good reason at all why academics and socializing have to be handled in the same place, especially with the internet. All public education should be done online except for things that require hands-on activities and then for example a chem lab could just rent a room at a university. "Exercise" rather than being handled in physical education can be handled in non-school physical clubs that the parents and kids choose and the government can subsidize this. For socializing, again non-school clubs would work better. Think about it, if a kid becomes the target of bullying or is just shunned at school he's SOL. He still has to go there. The whole experience will destroy his self-esteem and typically will hinder success at academics and the building of social skills. It would be better if he could do his academics online and he and his parents could get him his social skills at a club, and if he gets bullied or excluded at one club then they can easily just pick another one. People often react to the idea of "online education" or "tutoring" with concerns about building social skills. That doesn't make sense. Humans are social by nature. The child will WANT to socialize somewhere and his parents will want him to socialize too, so the kids wind up socializing elsewhere and typically with people they actually enjoy and in a much more comfortable and less threatening way than when you try to force hundreds of kids to interact with each other 5 days a week for several years.
  • Post Removed by Moderators
  • u
    seedtick
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    Hey, I have five granddaughters...they are all individuals. I encourage that, but I caution them to choose a career with an eye for the future because "what is important at one moment in time may be the least important thing by the time you begin a career." But, math, science, engineering, medical....are all necessary at any moment in time.
  • u
    CommonSense
    !
    There's a world of difference between single-sex schools and single-sex classrooms. Schools that pursue single-sex classrooms but are mixed schools invariably show a bias towards embracing and teaching to gender stereotypes, do a study of those schools and you'll probably see the opposite effect, that it reinforces stereotypes.
    In a school with boys and girls in it they're going to learn norms for which subjects the boys are supposedly good at and that the girls are supposedly good at and then some girls will worry about being seen as too masculine so shy away from boy subjects or they'll lose confidence in their ability to do them. And guys will shy away from things like cooking for fear of looking feminine or fear of other guys thinking they are homosexual.
    But this probably works for other things people build stereotypes around too. I bet if you look at the academic pursuits of black people those in schools with a racial mix are more likely to pursue things related to music or physical education and those in schools that are predominantly black (if we control for socioeconomic factors) are more likely to pursue subjects like English that black people are stereotyped as being bad at. That still doesn't mean we should be going out of our way to create public single-race schools.
    The solution is not segregation. The solution is education and awareness against the perpetuation of gender stereotypes. We also need to educate kids against homophobia, since fears of people thinking you are gay would also lead to more gender stereotypical behavior.
  • ASmith
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    An environment free of harassment will always allow people to do better. Unless of course, you're the sort of scum who wants the harassment to continue.... The best quote on the linked page is this:
    ----------
    "Isn't the cliché that boys need to go to mixed schools to turn them into complete human beings, but girls need to go to single sex schools for the same." - gastro george