{"id":22052,"date":"2014-05-15T11:06:29","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T15:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=22052"},"modified":"2014-05-15T11:11:20","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T15:11:20","slug":"explaining-the-research-on-single-gender-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2014\/05\/15\/explaining-the-research-on-single-gender-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"Explaining The Research On Single-Gender Classes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Students<\/a>

John O'Connor \/ Flickr<\/p>

Students at the all-girls Ferrell Preparatory Academy in Tampa. Ariana Jerome, Shawna Kent, Elena Postlewait and Destiny Jackson all say they prefer their all-girls school to the co-ed schools they previously attended.<\/p><\/div>\n

The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging single-gender schools and classes in Hillsborough County. The ACLU claims the programs reinforce gender stereotypes and that the evidence supporting single-gender schooling is based on “junk science.”<\/a><\/p>\n

So what does the science say? The results are mixed, as is often the case in education research.<\/p>\n

Two large reviews of single-gender education research found little evidence that boys and girls do better in school, long-term, if they are separated.<\/p>\n

University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology professor Janet Hyde was part of a team which reviewed 184 single-gender education studies earlier this year<\/a>. Hyde is also the director of research for a national co-education advocacy group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the best-designed studies, Hyde found no evidence students benefit from single-gender education across 14 outcomes, including math performance, self-esteem, attitudes about math and science and more.<\/p>\n

“Often it will work in the first year,” Hyde said, “because everybody’s enthusiastic about it. They recruit the best teachers, and so on. But after the first year, when the novelty wears off, it doesn’t really produce any benefits.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The programs are also expensive and can cause logistical problems, Hyde said, because districts must offer three versions of every class: for males, females and both sexes. That can be difficult for smaller school districts.<\/p>\n

Stetson University education professor Kathy Piechura-Couture<\/a> has been advising single-gender programs at Woodward Avenue Elementary in Deland and is on the board of a national single-gender education advocacy group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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