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School Choice & Charters Opinion

Single Sex Debate: Day 3

By Richard Whitmire — September 28, 2011 1 min read
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David Chadwell posts an interesting question: If gender differences are routinely researched in the medical community, why not among educators?

From the Fox News piece:

Women not only live longer than men, they also appear to be in more robust health. A new hypothesis offers a reason why: it's in their genes.

And, in Psychology Today, a response to the critical comments from Leonard Sax:

The article we published last week in Science has received much attention in the press (e.g., NY Times, Washington Post, etc.), and for good reason. Contrary to what Leonard Sax has led many parents, teachers, and principals to believe, large-scale scientific studies have all concluded that single-sex schooling is not more effective than coeducational schooling. That is not to say that there aren't individual studies (among the thousands that have been conducted) that find advantages. But it is to say that the bulk of the evidence indicates that any positive effects of single-sex schooling found cannot be attributed to the single-sex school environment. And, the claims about brain and learning differences that are touted in support of single-sex schooling are pseudoscience, in that findings are cherry-picked and misconstrued. Because single-sex schooling has not been found to be beneficial, it does not make sense to use precious public educational funds to create such programming.

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