I believe that if the "far right" ever take off in this country, it will be because of people like O'Riordain trying to force their ultra woke ideas on middle Ireland. https://www.thejournal.ie/labour-schools-education-5675662-Feb2022/
Hang on - you've shifted the goalposts here a bit here - people being against same-sex schools is NOT the same as being against religious schools!
How do you think the discussion shifted to religious schools? The idea that segregation based on gender was due to religion (and why single sex schools should be abolished). That was the original association, and not one of my making.
Fair point - I misread the post about prqacticing religion - but in fairness, how about pointing this out instead of claiming intolerance? And it happened once, not three times. I'm not perfect, nor do I claim to be.
I wasn't being serious about you being intolerant. It was in response to your attempt to cast me as playing the victim.
Your last paragrapgh is flawed logic on two counts: 1 - it implies that religion can not be practied without a school or education; 2 - it implies that options are being "removed". Who by? How? If they are no longer avaialble due to reasons of viability or lack of numbers, then that's a simply/demand issue, not a democratic one.
You're implying logical statements where there was none were made. This is about choice, and many people want to have the option of sending their children to a religious school. There is a push to remove religion from the administration of schools.. today it's about not providing extra funding, tomorrow it will be no funding at all, or that all schools should be free of religion except as a abstract subject to be learned (which has happened or in the process of happening in other countries). The sentiments by many on the thread towards religion reflect that push to counter the presence of religion in Ireland, due to their feelings about past behaviour.
What people want is access to a secular education for their kids THEIR kids, not anyone else's. THIS is where the opposition comes from and it's got nothing to do with same sex or mixed schools. You seem to be under the impression (and again - CORRECT me if I am wrong instead of claiming I misquoted you three times) that going to a religious school is a right. If so, where is this stated in the Irish Constitution? If not, please clarify.
You raised the concepts of rights in terms of education and religion. I responded to that.
TBH I feel we're going far off base here... I'm not terribly interested in a long-drawn out discussion about religion and schools. That was another persons concern and I'm not going to adopt it... I jumped in because I found some of the remarks to be rather narrowminded, but that was a mistake on my part.
Sorry. I'll leave it (the religious aspect) here.
The State doesn’t fund religious instruction. The State provides funding on the basis that the school teaches the national curriculum, which includes Arts and physical education, or music, ballet, piano, GAA and other sports.
There was the idea of a national curriculum regarding education in ethics and beliefs was floated a few years back, but it ran into some fairly obvious legal obstacles rather quickly -
Yup. The vast majority of schools in China are mixed. A few private ones are single-sex, although usually they would be private finishing schools (or those aimed at the military) but all State schools are mixed. Dunno about the other countries.
its not causative though, or are North Korea and Russia models of forward thinking as they have high mixed education, china too I assume
Nobody's proposing anything different. Same-sex schools will not be banned. They just won't receive state funding.
There isn’t a hope of that happening. The State in any case has an obligation to provide for education, and the DOE has no inclination to cut its nose off to spite its face, in spite of the tiny minority of people who wish they would.
I can’t even imagine what you mean by “the country doesn’t have a sex segregation ethos” or why it should mean that single-sex educational institutions should be deprived of funding. Segregation implies that they accommodate both sexes while keeping them separate, but single-sex schools don’t do that, they provide education according to their own ethos.
State schools would be a different matter entirely, according to your preferred ethos, but it would have no impact on single-sex schools - generally speaking parents will favour education that is most similar to their own experiences, and a small number who did not have a good experience of education will be determined to avoid a similar experience for their children.
You don't put ridiculous questions like this to referendum. Doing so cheapens the power of the referendum. We elect politicians to make minor decisions like these on our behalf. If you're going to hold referenda to ask people what they want for breakfast, why bother with politicians at all.
Not answering the question then. If a state-funded school is high-performing, then do you think it is morally OK for that school to be permitted to refuse to enroll students based on sex? Surely if the state is footing the bill all students should have equity of access? If you feel this is morally OK, then why not other state-funded institutions? Should public hospitals be permitted to be women-only? Women-only busses? Men-only departments in the civil service?
Thread is a joke.
Its ostensibly about a topic faced by thousands and thousands of parents and school children, many many many of whom would have a strong view that mixed gender schools are better than single sex schools for reasons so obvious that they go without even saying.
And yet it cant even be **** debated without 'ultra woke ideas' being flung at it.
This should be in the Parenting Section or the Education Section, but no lets have it in the cesspit that is Current Affairs/IMHO.
But why this strong desire to force the “right” way on people. Removing state-funding is essentially tantamount to banning. Why can the people not just decide to send their children to a mixed school. Why must there be a repression of the right to pick a same-sex?
Put it to a referendum. You make assertions on other people’s behalf with utter conviction. Let the people decide. There is no convincing evidence that same-sex schools harm kids. I have no problem with my money going to a decent school, same sex or mixed
Would you say that countries with the highest levels of single-sex education are forward-thinking societies with humanitarianism and equality high on their agenda?
Healthier is a value judgement that you have place upon the topic. It is not borne out by evidence. We only have to look at the countries with predominantly mixed education, and we see that they are not ahead of us in terms of gender equality.
What happens to those who want their children to be raised in a religious environment?
Nobody's stopping them. Why should the state pay for their religious instruction?
Surely the correct approach is to provide everyone with the same kind of education, and if parents wish to supplement that with instruction of their choice; be that GAA, ballet, piano or religion, then they can go that on their own time and with their own money.
There maybe a fringe minority that want to abolish religion, but it's hardly "rampant". Most Irish people don't give a **** of you practice religion or not as long as you do it on your own time. You know that as well at I do.
While boards is rarely representative of Irish society, all you have to do is look at the thread with the range of objections about single-sex schools and religion, which aren't based on learning effectiveness, but simply objections that they exist. Also, there is an agenda being played out regarding religious run schools, which can be seen by the focus they get in the media and by politicians.
And I didn't say that Irish people cared what religion you practiced... this is the third time you've done this. Claiming something that wasn't previously suggested and running with it. It's getting a bit tiresome at this stage.
And If I've misunderstood you, please elaborate on what you then mean by "entitled to freedom of education, as long as it matches the approved one" of not a referring to a syllabus? Solely from an educational standpoint as we are taking about schools here.
When there's only non-religious schools remaining, your right to freedom of education and/or religion, won't mean much, will it? Only the school systems approved by others will be available. What happens to those who want their children to be raised in a religious environment?
That's why I was laughing. You have the right to education and religious expression, but if the options are removed (since the options exist right now), then your rights (in terms of religious led education) are of limited value.
I don’t get why people need to inflict their views on other people. Surely, if people don’t agree with single-sex schools, then they should not send their children to these schools. People can vote with their feet. Ditto, if people don’t like religious schools, then send them to a non-denominational school.
Aside from the other myriad of benefits, the state should not be sanctioning sex-based segregation just because there's a minority of people who feel like it's what they want to do.
As a country we don't have a sex segregation ethos, so why should institutions which have one, be provided with state assistance?
The old wisdom when I was in the teaching business (probably based on quite old data now) was that girls did better academically in single sex schools, boys did better academically in mixed.
Regardless of that though, it is much healthier socially for children to be educated together.
The issue of the under-performance of boys in our current system is a curricular and assessment issue which the Department are well aware of and have a dedicated section to try tackle it.
I don’t really understand your point? You are saying that there are too many non-religious schools in Ireland?
The numbers don't stack up. There aren't enough non denominational schools in the country.
https://jrnl.ie/5463812
I'm afraid your comments show disrespect to the many thousands of students who have gone through single-sex schools over the years.
The data is there showing students in mixed school have better social outcomes than those in single-sex school.
This is nonsense. There is no way of proving this one way or the other.
I never dismissed the suggestion that academic outcomes were better, I merely pointed out that it isn't an absolute - mixed-sex schools with an appropriate ethos can improve their academic outcomes with social changes. Whereas single-sex schools cannot resolve the issue of social outcomes because it caused entirely by the single-sex ethos.
More nonsense and for the same reason.
So what is actually to be gained from single-sex schooling? Better results? For what? What does that achieve?
If parents and/or their children believe single-sex schooling gets better results or is even just their preferred choices then they should not have anyone telling them they are wrong or be proposing to exclude them from having a choice.
You make it all sound like girls have no other opportunities to mix with boys and vice versa outside of school. Girls mix with boys and vice versa in any number of social situations outside school.
A neighbour of mine has twins, a boy and girl, just started secondary school in September and both insisted on going to single sex schools having done all primary education in the same mixed school. In the boy's case no less than 11 of his 6th class also go to his new secondary school.
Your expressed opinion condemns them to finish up less socially adequate which is presumptious on your part.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion and to express it.
Why must people determine the choice of others is beyond me. Not only do they want to prevent their kids going to single-sex schools (perfectly acceptable), they do not want the right for any other kids. People should have the right to decide.
America is a country with predominantly mixed high-schools. They are hardly worlds ahead of us in terms of attitudes towards females.
Rather than Aoghán going after the low-hanging fruit, that probably makes zero difference to gender equality, why can he not go after extreme porn, sexualisation of kids and unfettered social media access? Surely they are more obvious?
It has already been said above that identifying the effect of single versus co-ed schools on educational outcomes is difficult. There seems scant evidence of actual harm being caused by single-sex schools. I wonder if there was evidence that single-sex schools were educationally beneficial would A O'R seek to ban co-ed schools on the grounds of inferior outcomes?
Liberalism is about maximising individual choices, subject to others not being harmed by them. On that basis A O'R should have no case. I wonder do some people who want to ban single-sex schools also argue against vaccine mandates? The contrast centres on the question of one's choices causing harm to others.
You appear to have overlooked the main highlight of the paper you linked to -
While the above findings are useful, the number of studies is small and the research is limited in different ways, such as assessing only restricted aspects of interpersonal outcomes (e.g., marriage outcomes) based on single-item retrospective reports [11,41,42], and failure to control for any demographic variable of single-sex and coeducational school students [43]. While a few studies touched upon other aspects of mixed-gender relationships (e.g., heterosocial adjustment) and suggested poorer outcomes associated with single-sex schooling, they are usually unpublished (e.g., [44]), dated (e.g., [44,45]), or uncontrolled (e.g., [44]).
Like I say, anyone who puts academic outcomes at the top of the list in choosing a school is probably some kind of sociopath. I would rather a child come out with a very poor academic education, but highly confident and well-rounded socially. We already know that academic performance is a very weak indicator of future success anyway.
It appears to be just you is saying that though, that anyone who puts academic outcomes at the top of a list in choosing a school is probably some kind of sociopath. It’s an opinion that has about the same level of legitimacy in relation to education in Ireland as a small scale study on gender salience and anxiety from Hong Kong!
It’s also nothing more than a false equivalence to suggest that anyone has to choose between their children being highly confident, well-rounded poor academic achievers, and high academic achievers with low confidence who are likely to become divorced in later life, if they don’t turn out to be sociopaths of course 😒
Isn;t this the whole point of a syllabus?
A syllabus can be shared between religious and non-religious schools. You dodged the point.
As for the victim comment, I'm agnostic. Oh! I used to be extremely religious when I was a teenager but lost my faith as an adult. And there is a decidedly strong agenda by many people to demolish religion in this country.
Throwing the victim card at me is simply a sign of your intolerance. See? I can do it too.
No, there are claims of that being the case. The data does no such thing, unless you're going to provide me with links to the research proving it?
There is never going to be an absolute when it comes to schools, because they're all operated differently, and the influence of teachers themselves is going to be extremely varied.
There is no proof that single-sex schools have issues with regards to social outcomes.. Unless you're going to provide some evidence of that claim? Society has problems with regards to social issues, and it's being blamed on single-sex schools, absent the evidence to support that belief. There is a gaping pit for evidence and research to back up those claims... I've done multiple searches and have found only a few pieces of research that support it, and they still come across of pushing assumptions rather than proving that it's the case. Interesting that you made the claim that there was a bias in supporting single-sex schools, but can't seem to see a bias in pushing the co-ed schooling, when there doesn't seem to be much actual evidence to support such assumptions.
I would also label academic outcomes as "largely irrelevant", since the difference is relatively small anyway (<= 10% for the highest achievers) and doesn't offset the long term implications of social issues.
Whereas as someone who struggled in schooling, and failed to achieve the Cao points needed for what I originally wanted... I'd say that such outcomes are of vital importance to many people. It's of particular importance to those people who want to study abroad after school, because such considerations are incredibly important in most other countries other than Ireland, and who is to say that Ireland will remain that way in the future?
In effect, choosing to send children to a single-sex school, knowing the difference, is choosing a short-term gain (academic achievement), for a long-term loss (psychosocial development).
In effect, sending your kids to single-sex schools provide a greater chance at educational achievements, and no realistic loss in social interactions, since those are easily accommodated through extra curricular activities, or simply that the school has it's own policy of sharing activities with other single-sex schools in the area.
As for psychosocial development... that can go both ways. There's quite a bit of research showing the pressures that boys/girls experience by being together in a learning environment, especially when aspects like peer pressure comes into play. There's going to be positives and negatives to both systems from a psychosocial pov.
My own thoughts.
Maybe they’ll next want to make the colours of traffic lights different… more inclusive, representative,
people have been calling for an end to single sex wards in hospitals a couple of years ago…considering the difference in anatomy… you could be a guy going in with a herniated disc and end up with a hystericalrectomy…..
The "data" is going to be fairly weak here, short of doing an unethical twins study there will be any number of confounding variables. If the effects were that obvious, parents wouldnt send their kids to them.
Utimately the heat this issue creates is idiological, not a particular consideration for the kids well being
To be honest I've no idea who carried out the wrongs or why they did so, all I know is they were carried out by leaders of the catholic church, and had that been a company or a school the sanctions would have been far more severe.
I do have a child and I hope that by the time she starts school there will be zero time waste in the weekly curriculum for the advancement of an organisation that is dying on its knees in a country that has decided in its masses that times have changed and it is time to move on. If others want to do communion and confirmation then power to them, do it on your own time and not on school time. And any parents who complain about this are showing their true colours, they have no interest in being involved. They want the school to do the heavy lifting, then the parents will arrange the bouncy castle and envelope collection on the big day.
If the church would stop openly discriminating against women and homosexuals they may be more deserving of people's attention. But an organisation that treats paedophiles in higher regard than gay people...not so much.
So, you're entitled to freedom of education, as long as it matches the approved one.
And "people" object to communion/confirmation regardless of whether the school is religious or not.
I've yet to meet ANYONE who objects to communication/confirmation. The only time I've ever seen seen it suggested was by facists.
Not is there are "rampant desire.... to remove religion completely from out soceity"!! Put away the victim cards, Klaz!
Yes, and your stats prove that there is complete freedom in terms of religion in todays Ireland. Then you go on to mention historical abuse, and you are right, and I'm a product of CBS education, so I and others of my generation don'n need telling or educatng about Church abuse. Then the slur that the Grannies ( and by definition Granddad's) Indoctrinating their kids into an abusive organisation. Do you think that todays Church is an abusive organisation? Or do you think that todays kids would be influenced by an older generation....do you have kids yourself, by any chance? Kids today question everything.....and it starts early. And now, last line from me, do you think that what wrongs have been done historically, ( and there were many ) and the people who did them, were Christians? Or corrupt people who used the cloak of religion to cover their wrong doing?
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w9.vanillicon.com/v2/9c6ef39403f5dc93bd4b9e77a11c1821.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w0.vanillicon.com/v2/04cbf1b64e8b0e561c543c5b1091ba30.svg)
