Single-sex classes: Female physics students state their case

School Science and Mathematics, Nov 1998 by Streitmatter, Janice

Since the passage of Title IX in 1972, gender equity has been addressed through means that reflect inclusion and integration by gender. Recent Supreme Court decisions such as the one deeming the Virginia Military Institute's admission policies to be unlawfully discriminatory against women suggest a reinforced and perhaps narrowed interpretation of appropriate means for attaining gender equity in public schools. This case and others also suggest that publicly funded single-sex programs may be in jeopardy. This study examines data collected from a girls-only physics class in a public coeducational high school. Interview and observation data from this class, as well as from a coeducational physics class taught by the same teacher, illustrate that the girls in the single-sex class made substantial gains in both academic achievement and in perceptions of themselves as competent learners of science.

The contemporary discussion surrounding gender discrimination and bias began in earnest with the passage of Title IX in 1972. Framed within the principles of integration and equality, programs and interventions have been designed and implemented to address the social and pedagogical issues surrounding the need to give girls more in the schooling experience. A few argue that the gender gap in achievement and aspiration has diminished to the point of irrelevance (e.g Ravich, 1992). However, the substantial body of literature indicates that addressing gender equity as we have to date does not appear to have provided female students with the same opportunities as male students (e.g., American Association of University Women Report, 1992; Sadker & Sadker,1994; Streitmatter,1992).

Despite the imperative of Title IX to integrate rather than separate, a small but growing number of girls-only classes, particularly in the areas of math and science, have been developed within the context of coeducational public schools as a means of addressing gender equity issues. These classes tend to exist in a fragile state. Attacks on affirmative action at both the federal level and within institutions such as the University of California system suggest a climate in which specialized programs designed to empower a group determined to be disadvantaged or needy may be considered inappropriate at least and illegal at most.

Given the weight of the increasing opposition to and the tentative nature of the existence of girls-only classes, the question of the benefits of these settings is an important one to ask. It appears that the current direction of policy related to gender equity is toward interpreting Title IX in the strictest sense. Any move toward enhancing the opportunities of one group soon may be interpreted as unlawfully discriminatory, even when the educational outcomes for that group are consistently below those of the majority group. A recent example of Title IX interpretation is the decision of the Federal Supreme Court to strike down the maleonly admission policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) (Greenhouse, 1996). In writing for the majority of the court, Ginsberg indicated there was no compelling reason based on gender to allow the publicly funded Institute to continue denying admission to women applicants who otherwise met the criteria. This example suggests that single-sex settings receiving public support may be in jeopardy.

A Sampling of Single-sex Research

A limited but growing body of literature exists that examines the effects of single-sex schooling in general and in some cases focuses specifically on science classes. Nearly all of the literature examines single-sex schools, with quantitative designs focusing on outcome measures such as achievement test scores, course grades, and/or career aspirations or attainment. There are unquestionably critical differences between singlesex schools and single-sex classes within coeducational public schools, but a minimal amount of literature exists examining the latter, particularly in the United States. Therefore, the literature review for this study must rely on the foundation laid by the work that has examined single-sex schools.

Much of the existing research has come from Australia. Single-sex public education has been an option in Australia for some time, and a Federal initiative connecting teacher promotion with teacher-initiated work in gender equity has been in effect for the past 10 years (e.g., Gill, 1996; Hildebrand, 1996). Other work comes from Great Britain and some from the U.S. schooling experience. In general, these studies suggest conflicting findings about the benefits, especially for girls, of single-sex settings.

Young and Fraser (1992) examined nearly 5,000 secondary students in physics classes in single-sex and coeducational schools in Australia. They reported that the home background more heavily influenced students' achievement than did the gender composition of the school. Harvey's (1985) study of British secondary school girls and boys in their first year of science found that a single-sex setting for science instruction, either a class within a mixed-sex setting or a single-sex school, had no effect on achievement.