Washington: A new study found scant evidence that single-sex classrooms and even entire schools offer any educational or social benefits. The study was the largest and most thorough effort to examine the issue to date, Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, “We looked at 184 studies, representing the testing of 1.6 million students in grades K-12 from 21 nations, for outcomes related to science and mathematics performance, educational attitudes and aspirations, self-concept and gender stereotyping”.
The study used an analytical technique called meta-analysis, which draws conclusions from multiple studies of an issue. “The claim that boys do better verbally in single-sex schooling, because they get squelched in a coed setting, did not hold up. And the claim has been made that girls will develop a better self-concept, but again there is no evidence for that,” Hyde said.
Data was scarce regarding one disputed area: possible benefits for minority boys, Hyde said, “There has been some thinking that this would help ethnic minority boys, but we did not find enough studies covering that topic”.
On a practical level, Hyde added that single-sex schooling is “terrifically difficult and expensive. If you have a single-sex 8th grade math class for girls, you need another for boys, and a third that’s coed. Public schools have better places to put their money.”
The study is published in the online Psychological Bulletin.