Equal Opportunities in the Curriculum in Single Sex Schools, Bird and Varlaam, 1985 (offprint reader)

Sex in Schools - does it matter?

This quantitative research took advantage of two adjacent single-sex religious schools, one for boys and the other for girls 22 years ago. They broadened curriculum by mixing the genders and seeing reactions in pupils to studying subject they would normally not have access to. They had limited facilities but got some raw data. The researchers try to make sense of that data. Girls took Craft Design and Technology and boys took Textiles (needlework).

The initial attitudes, the reactions of pupils, the impact on conception of gender roles, interest in taking further courses and teacher views were all considered in the light of the quantitative data.

It turned out that girls were initially keener on the swap than boys but both sexes had less fixed opinion that jobs could only be done by the traditional gender employed in them. Computer programming and chef were exceptions before and after the experiment, as most pupils considered gender was irrelevant.

The conclusions included that girls benefited more than boys from the mixing of genders for courses. The limitation to one school year may have biased results because of the effect and sway of novelty.

Obvious weakness in this method of research lies in the questions asked and the questions not asked. The question asked was would mixing make any difference in opinion about gender roles in employment, and if so in which genders. However significance in result was a matter if statistical computation and the data were skewed by the non-traditional nature of the schools (religious), limitation to one school year, and a possibility that the instruments for capturing the data was biased or misunderstood.

The appendix of data was neat, conveying a probably false authority to the paper. One could check the results and conclusions, if one wanted to.

The question that is the elephant in the room of course is WHY? Why did the girls and boys think the way they did? Why did opinions change (or not change)?

I know with hindsight that mixed school curricula do work, favouring girls – or, put another way, the change for traditional schools has resulted in an overall drop in performance for boys compared with girls, as admitted by governments. This straightforward study may have been influential in giving confidence to those considering mixed schools for economic or other political reasons.