A Study of Motives, Challenges, Professional Development, and Beneficial Outcomes of Single-Gender Classrooms in Coeducational Public Middle Schools


Book Description

McGlown, Calvin. Ed. D. The University of Memphis. December 2015. A Study of Motives, Challenges, Professional Development, and Beneficial Outcomes of Single-Gender Classrooms in Coeducational Public Middle Schools. Major Professor: Larry McNeal, Ph. D The purpose of this study was to examine the leading motivations, primary challenges, types of professional development engaged in, and positive outcomes perceived by administrators who have either initiated or inherited the practice of single-gender classes within coeducational middle school settings. To address the four research questions presented within this study, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to conduct multiple analyses that addressed four groups of dependent variables (motives, challenges, professional development, and beneficial outcomes of single-gender education) on the independent variables initiators and inheritors of the single-gender education initiative. Although, no statistically significant differences were observed for the two subgroups of respondents (initiators and inheritors) with respect to answering any of the research questions, there were clearly differences in the perceptions of all respondents as to which reasons most motivated their adoption of single-gender education: which challenges they regarded as the most serious, which types of professional development they most frequently engaged in, and which outcomes they most agreed their programs had achieved. For respondents in the aggregate, addressing learning style, improving student achievement, and decreasing the problems of low achievers were the reasons they selected as most important for taking on single-gender education. The greatest challenges they indicated, were those connected to teacher professional development, with respect to single-gender education and teaching under achieving students. In terms of their own professional development, administrators most frequently read articles and made observational visits to classes in their own schools. Administrators rarely took university coursework related to instruction or made conference presentations. All respondents agreed that their implementation of single-gender education produced a range of positive outcomes, such as improvement in student achievement.




Debating Single-sex Education


Book Description

Educators agree that boys and girls learn differently, but do they learn better in single-sex classes? Single-sex education has become a 'hot topic' among educators striving to address achievement declines, especially in the middle school years. Since the United States Department of Education confirmed the legality of single-sex classes in public schools in 2006, the number of single-sex classes and schools has increased dramatically and the options continue to grow in popularity. Debating Single-Sex Education offers a timely and detailed summary of the issues surrounding single-sex education. Eight veteran educators provide research-based findings on single-sex classes in the United States and Africa. This book presents a brief historical summary of single-sex classes in the United States. Other features include recent qualitative case studies, interviews with students, and statistical evidence of the effects of single-sex classes on student achievement. The final chapter synthesizes the common findings among these studies and the implications for practice in schools.




GENDER-BASED EDUCATION: THE PILOT YEAR OF SINGLE-GENDER CLASSES AT A PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.


Book Description

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires public schools to be highly accountable for dollars spent on education and for the achievement of students. To support this mandate, the law expanded local control and allowed schools to explore innovative ways to enhance student learning (U.S.D.E., 2004). Given the opportunity, some public schools have experimented with single-gender classes as an avenue for improving the way students are taught. Studies have indicated that separating students according to gender has a positive impact on learning (e.g., Haag, 2000; Maslen, 2001; and Sommers, 2001). Single-gender settings have also been reported to have a positive affect on the attitudes of students (NASSPE, 2004b; Colley et al., 1994, James & Richards, 2003; and Rowe, 2000). Because single-gender classes were not an option in the public school sector in recent years, most current studies of single-gender education involve private and parochial schools. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the initial impact of implementing gender-based instruction in a suburban public elementary school in central Mississippi. The impact was analyzed in terms of the overall perceptions of the administrator, teachers, students, and parents who participated in the pilot program. The impact was also measured by the students' performance in the areas of academic achievement, school attendance, and classroom behavior during the pilot year of fifth-grade, single-gender classes. The results of the study indicated the overall perceptions of the participants were favorable toward single-gender classes. The students maintained approximately the same level of academic achievement in fifth-grade, single-gender classes as in fourth-grade coeducational classes. They produced an average of 2.6 years (grade equivalent) growth in Accelerated Math during the year of single-gender classes. The average daily attendance was consistent with previous attendance patterns and exceeded the distr.




For Girls Only


Book Description

Current research on the progress of female students in U.S. public schools suggests that efforts have not sufficiently addressed concerns such as academic under-achievement in the areas of math and science, lower self-esteem from the advent of early adolescence, and vulnerability to sexual harassment. Despite Title IX, some educators have turned to the creation of single-sex classes and programs for female students in order to better address these critical issues.




Review of Recent Research on the Achievement of Girls in Single-sex Schools


Book Description

Concerns over gender-related differences in achievement within the education system, particularly the perceived under-achievement of boys, have generated debate since the early 1980s. This review of research on girls’ achievement includes the debate about single-sex versus mixed-sex schooling, the social and academic environments of single-sex schools and their effect on girls’ performance, and the setting up of single-sex classes in mixed-sex schools to counteract gender-related differences in performance. The authors show that the performance patterns of girls and boys are changing, with new complexities replacing the traditional stereotypes. The main findings of this research are highlighted to provide the basis for informed debate on girls’ achievement in single-sex schools.







A Gendered Choice


Book Description

Across the U.S. about 500 public schools currently offer single-gender classes or programmes. Hundreds more schools are contemplating separate classes for boys and girls in the wake of the 2006 legislation that allows such programmes to satisfy Title IX requirements. Spearheading the national trend in this direction with over 300 single-gender programmes is South Carolina, where David W. Chadwell was appointed the first state coordinator for single-gender initiatives. In this book, Chadwell lays out for administrators the step-by-step process of implementing single-sex programmes and schools in three stages: designing, initiating, and sustaining. A Gendered Choice is a practical, how-to book based upon unique, first-hand experience that interested administrators will want to examine as they contemplate or begin to introduce single-gender programmes in their schools.




EBOOK: Rethinking Single Sex Teaching


Book Description

The retreat to single-sex classes in co-educational comprehensive schools in the UK reflects a long history where educational policy and practice has made explicit the belief that boys and girls are different in how they learn and what they should learn. However, there is also a common assumption that there is equality in what is made available to learn and, if there is not, then single-sex organisation achieves this. The authors challenge this opinion and offer a fresh and theoretically informed look at the debate about single-sex teaching, presenting insights from research about the intended and unintended consequences of gender division in schools. Drawing on classroom observations and in-depth interviews with teachers and students, the book illustrates the effect of single-sex classrooms on learners and on the versions of subject knowledge made available to them. In exploring the differences in teaching practices between boys’ and girls’ classrooms, in relation to subjects such as Science, English, Drama, and Design and Technology, the authors highlight how single-sex teaching can, inadvertently, create circumstances which limit rather than open up students’ access to subject knowledge. The authors offer conceptual tools for investigating the knowledge-gender dynamic, advocating that learning will expand if teachers work with gender to help students to cross boundaries into non-traditional gender territories within subject lessons. Rethinking Single-Sex Teaching is thought-provoking reading for teachers, head teachers, academics and policy makers.




Same, Different, Equal


Book Description

Although coeducation has been the norm within private and public schools since the 1970s, single-sex education has staged a comeback in recent years as a means of addressing the academic and social problems faced by some students. Single-sex education raises controversy on ideological grounds, and in 1996 the Supreme Court struck down the all-male admissions policy at the Virginia Military Institute in a decision that has cast a legal cloud over public initiatives. In this timely book, Rosemary Salomone offers a reasoned educational and legal argument supporting single-sex education as an alternative to coeducation, particularly in the case of disadvantaged minority students. Salomone examines the history of women’s education and exclusion, philosophical and psychological theories of sameness and difference, findings on educational achievement and performance, the research evidence on single-sex schooling, and the legal questions that have arisen. Correcting many of the current misconceptions about single-sex education, she argues that it is a viable option and that the road to gender equality should be paved with diverse educational opportunities for all students—regardless of race, class, or gender.




Gender Consciousness and Privilege


Book Description

Develops a new framework for working in schools that helps educators make informed decisions about change at individual, classroom, curricular and school levels on behalf of gender equity. Addresses the issue of understanding the impact of education on the two sexes, and looks at responsibility for creating gender-fair environments, organising work and creating environments for learning. The book draws on a two-year study into the role that gender played as three Catholic high schools prepared to move from single sex to coeducation. It does not weigh the advantages of single sex against coeducative approaches, but studies gender in a setting where the particpants' consciousness of gender issues was heightened: faculty and administration were formally and informally discussing gender concepts and students were talking about male and female issues. The book shows that the combination of leadership, staff and curricular awareness, and an understanding of gender fair and gender affirmative practices can serve to improve institutional effectiveness and lead to higher levels of student achievement.