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Single-sex schools - better in the long run?

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  • 04-11-2012 3:44pm
    #1
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users Posts: 33,904 ✭✭✭✭


    expectationlost wrote: »
    the state should developing a system for secular schools rather then concreting religion into these new community schools

    I can't figure out why Quinn is still awarding patronage of newly built schools to religious bodies. The way to get out of a hole isn't to dig more slowly.

    Quinn should draw a line in the sand and say that as of today NO more new schools with religious patronage (or which are single-sex) will receive state funding. He should also immediately - and for all schools - repeal the legislation allowing schools to discriminate in enrolment and employment and remove the integration of religion throughout the primary curriculum.

    Then we can decide how to deal with the patronage of existing schools, but at least we won't be spending taxpayers' money on building new schools which are not inclusive.

    Life ain't always empty.



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    #2
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    ninja900 wrote: »
    I can't figure out why Quinn is still awarding patronage of newly built schools to religious bodies. The way to get out of a hole isn't to dig more slowly.

    Quinn should draw a line in the sand and say that as of today NO more new schools with religious patronage (or which are single-sex) will receive state funding. He should also immediately - and for all schools - repeal the legislation allowing schools to discriminate in enrolment and employment and remove the integration of religion throughout the primary curriculum.

    Then we can decide how to deal with the patronage of existing schools, but at least we won't be spending taxpayers' money on building new schools which are not inclusive.

    Agree - apart for the bit about single-sex schools.


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    #3
    expectationlost
    Registered Users Posts: 11,753 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    ninja900 wrote: »
    I can't figure out why Quinn is still awarding patronage of newly built schools to religious bodies. The way to get out of a hole isn't to dig more slowly.

    well imho expect atleast 2/3 rds of these schools to be ET or CNS


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    #4
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users Posts: 33,904 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Agree - apart for the bit about single-sex schools.

    Why?
    If we are agreed that needless segregation and duplication of schools on the basis of religion is wrong, it should logically follow that segregation and duplication of our schools on the basis of gender is wrong.
    Gender segregation in schools imposes traditional sex roles - no home ec for the boys and no physics for girls. As a physics graduate and a father of a daughter who I will tolerate no gender barrier upon her, and a son (ditto to the above) and whom I want to be capable of running a household, this makes me want to vomit.

    Life ain't always empty.



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    #5
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    ninja900 wrote: »
    Why?
    If we are agreed that needless segregation and duplication of schools on the basis of religion is wrong, it should logically follow that segregation and duplication of our schools on the basis of gender is wrong.
    Gender segregation in schools imposes traditional sex roles - no home ec for the boys and no physics for girls. As a physics graduate and a father of a daughter who I will tolerate no gender barrier upon her, and a son (ditto to the above) and whom I want to be capable of running a household, this makes me want to vomit.

    My experience has led me to think that girls, in particular, actually do better in single-sex schools - there is no reason that home ec cannot be taught to boys or physics to girls - the national curriculum doesn't specify any subject as gender specific so those decisions are made by either the patron or board of management.

    My all girl school certainly didn't impose traditional gender roles but in my son's mixed primary and secondary schools there were clearly issues around 'boys' subjects and 'girls' subjects (and many the rant he had about that) - it wasn't the school imposing this - it was very much peer pressure.

    A good friend of mine is spearheading a very successful literacy programme working in primary schools and her experience is that the majority of girls do far better in single-sex schools.

    Sadly, there is still a huge amount of peer pressure on girls to 'dumb it down' as boys, apparently, don't fancy smart girls. :rolleyes:


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    #6
    expectationlost
    Registered Users Posts: 11,753 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    girls may do better in all girls schools, so what, let them go to school in a bit social reality, you're missing out the whole equality bit.


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    #7
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    expectationlost wrote: »
    girls may do better in all girls schools, so what, let them go to school in a bit social reality, you're missing out the whole equality bit.

    How can I be missing out on the equality bit when I am saying I favour same-sex schools because girls are not as likely to bow to peer pressure to dumb it down so they don't show the boys up? That is social reality.

    As for - 'girls may do better in all girls schools, so what' - the 'so what' is that girls do better in single sex schools so should they be denied this - how is that equality?


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    #8
    coffee_cake
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,310 CMod ✭✭✭✭coffee_cake


    It doesn't matter about education as long as we look pretty for the boys


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    #9
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users Posts: 33,904 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    My experience has led me to think that girls, in particular, actually do better in single-sex schools - there is no reason that home ec cannot be taught to boys or physics to girls - the national curriculum doesn't specify any subject as gender specific so those decisions are made by either the patron or board of management.

    No but a smaller school will always have a narrower subject choice and isn't going to have the resources to offer subjects which only a handful of pupils might take up.
    Many towns/areas have 3 or 4 secondary schools segregated on the basis of gender and religion, to me this is needless balkanisation and wasteful of resources.

    My all girl school certainly didn't impose traditional gender roles but in my son's mixed primary and secondary schools there were clearly issues around 'boys' subjects and 'girls' subjects (and many the rant he had about that) - it wasn't the school imposing this - it was very much peer pressure.

    Peer pressure will always be with us, but in an all-boys school he simply wouldn't have had the option of doing those subjects in the first place.
    A good friend of mine is spearheading a very successful literacy programme working in primary schools and her experience is that the majority of girls do far better in single-sex schools.

    Don't they still do better than the boys though, even in mixed schools? In Ireland you would have to be careful about the admission policy of schools when comparing them, the stated admission policy is one thing but what happens in the real world, and the choices parents make based on the perception of a school, is another.

    Life ain't always empty.



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    #10
    Dades
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    recedite wrote: »
    2. Reduce and then eliminate the State subventions to fee paying schools. If they want an unfair advantage, let them pay unfairly for it. Let them be completely privately funded.
    <can of worms>

    This is likely to result in a surge in demand for national school places as a large percentage of prospective parents find the doubling of private fees financially impossible. Their kids then compete for already stretched state school resources. It's cheaper for the state to subsidize the private schools than to have half those kids now needing the complete cost of their educations funded by the taxpayer.

    The notion that private schools are filled with the children of property developers and bankers is one many people still have. The reality is that most of the kids are of increasingly screwed middle class parents who save for years to send their kids to a school of their choice.


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    #11
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    ninja900 wrote: »
    No but a smaller school will always have a narrower subject choice and isn't going to have the resources to offer subjects which only a handful of pupils might take up.
    Many towns/areas have 3 or 4 secondary schools segregated on the basis of gender and religion, to me this is needless balkanisation and wasteful of resources.

    But that will happen regardless of whether a school is mixed/single sex or small/ large.

    In history, for example, there are two choices in the national curriculum for leaving cert - Modern or Early Modern - the school decides and only one of these is taught (usually Modern) yet in every Irish university most 2nd year core modules are focused on the Early Modern period.
    We need more modularisation in secondary schools to broaden the curriculum and more interaction with PLCs, IT's and Uni's.
    Son attended a mixed high school in Oz which had modules - a few core subjects plus a range of options, one of which was computer studies but the school did not have the facilities so pupils attended the local TAFE (like our IT's) for that option - as they did for other technical subjects.



    Peer pressure will always be with us, but in an all-boys school he simply wouldn't have had the option of doing those subjects in the first place.

    The range of subjects is decided by the Board of Management but in son's school any boy who wanted to do a subject seen as 'female' was derided as a '******', while girls who wanted to do so-called 'male' subjects were 'dykes'. This was not coming from the school but from the pupils.
    I used to train chefs, most of the trainees were male and few of them had ever cooked anything in their lives when they began even though many of them attended schools that did provide 'domestic science' courses. Peer pressure in their schools prevented them...


    Don't they still do better than the boys though, even in mixed schools? In Ireland you would have to be careful about the admission policy of schools when comparing them, the stated admission policy is one thing but what happens in the real world, and the choices parents make based on the perception of a school, is another.

    I see it even in 3rd level where some female students who are gaining high marks in written work tend to keep quiet while the 'Lads' hold forth in lectures - this impacts on the continual assessment component of their marks.
    Purely as a matter of personal interest I began to look at the schooling of the female students and discovered that those from single-sex schools were far more likely to speak up not having been conditioned during their school years to be 'demure' and let the men folk take the floor.


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    #12
    expectationlost
    Registered Users Posts: 11,753 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    what the hell has single sex schools got to do with atheism, can not one thread stick to topic on here?


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    #13
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    expectationlost wrote: »
    what the hell has single sex schools got to do with atheism, can not one thread stick to topic on here?

    The evidence would suggest No.


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    #14
    Dades
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    expectationlost wrote: »
    what the hell has single sex schools got to do with atheism, can not one thread stick to topic on here?
    It's only a wee tangent that will probably run it's course. It's not as if the whole "schools" thing hasn't been done a dozen times already in A&A this year.

    Every individual poster can of course stay on topic, if they wish. :)


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    #15
    joseph brand
    Registered Users Posts: 4,537 ✭✭✭joseph brand


    expectationlost wrote: »
    what the hell has single sex schools got to do with atheism, can not one thread stick to topic on here?

    You must be new here.

    We're highly disorganised. Like a clowder of cats. ;)


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    #16
    expectationlost
    Registered Users Posts: 11,753 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    this thread is about not creating artificial divisions in childrens schools, lets not create another one with 50% of the population.


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    #17
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users Posts: 33,904 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    expectationlost wrote: »
    what the hell has single sex schools got to do with atheism, can not one thread stick to topic on here?

    The subject of the thread is school patronage not atheism ;)

    The reason we have so many single sex schools in this country is because of the overwhelming domination of school patronage by religious organisations.

    Life ain't always empty.



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    #18
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    expectationlost wrote: »
    this thread is about not creating artificial divisions in childrens schools, lets create another one with 50% of the population.

    Or alternately - This thread is about how the State should not facilitate the indoctrination of children into one religion via the school system which led to a discussion on segregation along religious lines which had broadened into discussing segregation along gender lines.

    There is an argument to be made for all schools to be mixed, there is also an argument to be made for single sex schools - in this instance I am arguing for the latter as under the current format (which would exist even if it were secular) girls perform better in a single sex environment.


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    #19
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users Posts: 33,904 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Peer pressure in their schools prevented them...

    :(
    No doubt there's some parental pressure in there too, I would imagine there would be uproar from many parents if boys were made do home ec.

    Anyone can learn to cook later in life, but if girls are scared away from honours maths or engineering or hard sciences in school then they're unlikely to get another chance. These perceptions/pressures are going to exist whether the school is mixed or not (or even worse the subject is not offered at all, not many girls' schools offer physics but they all do biology, the 'female' science :rolleyes: :( )

    Purely as a matter of personal interest I began to look at the schooling of the female students and discovered that those from single-sex schools were far more likely to speak up not having been conditioned during their school years to be 'demure' and let the men folk take the floor.

    Segregate third level as well then so? :eek: ;) or maybe we should be dealing better in society as a whole with the issue of gender stereotyping etc. I think we really are drifting off topic now though :)

    Life ain't always empty.



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    #20
    coffee_cake
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,310 CMod ✭✭✭✭coffee_cake


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Son attended a mixed high school in Oz which had modules - a few core subjects plus a range of options, one of which was computer studies but the school did not have the facilities so pupils attended the local TAFE (like our IT's) for that option - as they did for other technical subjects.

    Going purely on hearsay though, I don't think we'd be much like that here. Or maybe I was lucky on schools I went to here. Girls had no problem being in the applied maths class or honours maths (I'm sure that was at least half girls) and same for physics.
    I have heard the "girls do better in single-sex schools" via studies though.

    The speaking out in lectures thing can be an issue for both though - when I sat in some lectures in tcd, they complained we didn't engage enough with them. We did in nuim though, so I reckon it was the lecturers really ;)


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    #21
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    bluewolf wrote: »

    The speaking out in lectures thing can be an issue for both though - when I sat in some lectures in tcd, they complained we didn't engage enough with them. We did in nuim though, so I reckon it was the lecturers really ;)

    I found bringing in sweeties to reward those who make relevant contributions works quite well. Really good contributions get a lollypop. :D


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    #22
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    I found bringing in sweeties to reward those who make relevant contributions works quite well. Really good contributions get a lollypop. :D
    I used to avoid doing that with snowflake -- six years old last month -- but following your advice, am currently handing out small chocolate coins for good questions or jokes, while excellent jokes and especially, questions I can't answer definitively, get a large chocolate coin. Coins which she has to share, of course :)

    BTW, how did Romans light their fires? She suggested rubbing sticks which I recall from somewhere, but I assume they just kept a fire going somewhere in the larger places too. I don't recall that they used flint. Suggestions welcome.


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    #23
    Dades
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    recedite wrote: »
    Look at it this way; if you buy a private house in a posh area, nobody gives you the price of a council house to go towards the cost.
    If you buy private health insurance, you don't get your PRSI refunded.
    In other words, when you want special treatment, you normally pay for it in full.
    Except in the case of private schools, where you only pay the difference. This is what keeps religious schools viable.
    You're addressing my post with some ideological argument when my point was that it would probably cost the state more to pull funding to private schools.
    recedite wrote: »
    BTW the "surge in demand" for state schools would be met by a surge in changes from private school patronages to public. In this scenario, there is no net change in the overall number of kids.
    Of course there's no net change in the number of kids but there's an increase to the cost the state burdens to educate some of those kids. It costs the state more to put a child through state school than part fund their education in a private school.


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    #24
    strobe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,872 ✭✭✭strobe


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Purely as a matter of personal interest I began to look at the schooling of the female students and discovered that those from single-sex schools were far more likely to speak up not having been conditioned during their school years to be 'demure' and let the men folk take the floor.

    Better to try and address that issue if it does exist rather than simply throw our arms in the air and wail "the girls will be made act shy and silly so the boys will want to kiss them!!! The poor dears...", Shirley?

    Edit: Interesting tangent... petition to have the "mixed versus single-sex schools" topic split off into a thread of it's own to be discussed please Mods?


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    #25
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    strobe wrote: »
    Better to try and address that issue if it does exist rather than simply throw our arms in the air and wail "the girls will be made act shy and silly so the boys will want to kiss them!!! The poor dears...", Shirley?

    Edit: Interesting tangent... petition to have the "mixed versus single-sex schools" topic split off into a thread of it's own to be discussed please Mods?

    Absolutely.


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    #26
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Ah, new thread created, ex nihilo, and content moved from patronage thread.


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    #27
    kylith
    Registered Users Posts: 17,736 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    When I was in school I bemoaned the fact that it was single sex. Looking back I think that it was good to not be distracted by members of the opposite sex.


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    #28
    Obliq
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,371 ✭✭✭Obliq


    My main distraction in the co-ed school I went to was how not to get a knife in the back over not being a follower of the cliques of girls who determined whether you were cool enough to enter these based on your clothes and make-up. In my experience, girls were less distracted by boys and more by each other in terms of their position in the pecking order.

    In a girl's school, I'd have been lost and many times more miserable than I was. I spent the whole six years hanging about with the male misfits, wearing combats and a series of dodgy Run-DMC t-shirts. I'm aware that this is only my story, but to my mind, a girls school could do more (in social terms rather than academic) to perpetuate that VERY female thing of one-up-man-ship based on the perfect body/looks.

    As for the choice of subjects, I think it's a generational thing. There wasn't ONE girl in my year who did metalwork for example, and I regret not having had the nerve to be the only girl. However, these days, in my eldest's school, there's a much larger percentage of boys doing home ec than I thought there would be, and a number of girls doing metalwork. The best student in technical graphics (wants to be an engineer) is a girl. My young fella and the lads he knows just assume equality these days (of course, the girls might tell a different tale) and don't see home ec as a girlie subject at all.

    Must be all their Dad's cooking the dinner these days?


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    #29
    MagicMarker
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    ...in this instance I am arguing for the latter as under the current format (which would exist even if it were secular) girls perform better in a single sex environment.

    What do these studies say about boys in single sex schools? Do they do better than boys in mixed schools?


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    #30
    rainbow kirby
    Moderators, Regional Abroad Moderators Posts: 26,928 Mod ✭✭✭✭rainbow kirby


    I *hated* my all-girls school - was in a very bitchy and conformist year group, and as a sporty (but not in the accepted camogie or hockey sort of way), nerdy girl who always got on better with guys anyway I spent 6 years finding it exceptionally difficult to make friends. Also got a lot of stick from people over my choice of subjects, and ended up not getting the full selection I wanted anyway as I was the only person in the year who wanted to take 3 science subjects. The graduation speech about how we would make wonderful wives and mothers made me want to throw up too.

    I will not be sending any child of mine to a single-sex school unless it is absolutely the only available option. I don't think segregation by gender really benefits anyone.


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    #31
    Gbear
    Registered Users Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    One obvious solution to the gender-defined subjects like home ec, is to make home ec mandatory, as it really should be.


    It's probably our best bet in fighting childhood obesity. We'll also creative a generation of world class chefs, no doubt.:)


    My experience of the gender divided education is that boys who go to all-boys schools end up as poorer people for it. An awful lot of them seem to have a ****tier attitude to women than those who had to spend time with them in school for several years. I'd imagine that's usually remedied later in life but that's certainly my impression of them when they out of school. That's just my own experience so I'm not sure if it's born out in general across the country.

    If there are issues around having both genders together I think the first port of call is to try to fix those issues rather than just avoiding them with gender segregation.
    I think it's a lot easier to be, for example, homosexual or black in schools nowadays. Even if kids are sociopathic little ****ers at times they do seem to be moving in the right direction along with most of the rest of society. I see no reason why attitudes to gender can't move along too.


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