Presented By:
Jamie Carpenter
Greg Hutchings
Bronwyn MacFarlane
Holly Richard
Power Point
Presentation On Gender in Education
Travis Burns
Antoine Hickman
Patricia Kern
Shelly Nowacek
Power Point
Presentation On Special Education
Webmaster:
Jamie Carpenter
Single Sex Education
The only guarantee of positively decreasing or eliminating gender inequities is establishing an environment that cannot initiate such practices. If a classroom consisted of the same sex, then it would be more difficult to practice gender bias and inequities. Single sex classrooms allow the teacher to significantly focus on the particular background and difficulties of one gender. For instance, many observational studies demonstrate that male students participate more in class than do female students and that teacher behaviors contribute to this pattern (Sadker, Sadker, & Hergert, 1981). In a single sex environment, a teacher could focus solely on adequate tactics to motivate the female or male students and contribute to the solution of
differences.
However AAUW disagrees, "Separating by sex is not the answer to inequities in the schools," says Maggie Ford, president of the AAUW Educational Foundation, (AAUW, 1992). According to Guzetti & Williams (1996), females do not participate as frequently in a traditional classroom discussion because they are afraid of aggressive repercussions. Guzetti and Williams found that females did not lack self-confidence, fear violating social conventions, but rather felt intimidated by their male counterparts (Guzetti & Williams, 1996). Comments made by girls in the study, focused on their fears of repercussions from the male students, such as “I like working with all girls because you don't have to worry about your reputation”, “I wouldn't argue in class because they [boys] would probably bite off my head if I did”, and “Guys tend to be hostile ---if you're wrong, you're stupid, according to them” (Guzetti & Williams, 1996). Even small groups do not necessarily facilitate females' participation unless grouped by gender.
In one study, males in a traditional science lab group were engaged in manipulating the equipment, giving directions, and making verbal inferences about their observations; Females were most likely to be confined to setting up the equipment and passively recording data the boys had actively generated by conducting the experiment (Guzetti & Williams, 1996). When females were placed in same-sex groups, they engaged more often in a wider range of verbal interactions while setting up equipment, identifying errors and resolving them, measuring, making observations, recording data, negotiating their meaning and established self confidence (Guzetti & Williams, 1996).
