Debating Single-Sex Education: Separate and Equal

(Paperback, Second Edition)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Debating Single Sex Education: Separate and Equal, 2nd edition, provides a balanced summary of the context, concerns, and findings about single sex education in 21st Century United States.
Few school reforms have engendered as much controversy as single sex public education.
This book examines the history of single-sex classes and legislation that has over time evolved to render the reform legal, even though it continues to be subject to public scrutiny and litigation. The book also provides insights into the social, religious, and cultural contexts that set the stage for the growing popularity of single-sex education over the last decade. It explains controversial brain-based research and addresses the problem of bullying in single-sex classes. Finally, the book includes findings based on research in single-sex schools across the nation. Do single-sex classes work This book provides information that will allow the reader to make an informed decision about that question. Debating Single Sex Education: Separate and Equal,2nd edition, strives to inform the debate and add to the discourse on this popular school reform.

Reviews

Although single-sex schools have been around for a very long time, the US Department of Education did not formally determine their legality until 2006. Since then, they have continually grown in popularity. In this revised and expanded second edition, 11 veteran educators continue the debate on both the efficacy and the value of single-sex education. Beyond the statistical data from Africa and the US, the authors offer case studies, student interviews, and well-aimed comments on the evidence of effectiveness on student achievement. Contributors consider topics from the early history of single-sex classes in the US to current findings and their implications in the final chapters; from religious, social, and cultural contexts for gender segregation to the legal questions and cases that have dogged this topic; and from a careful examination of the cognitive and developmental differences in genders to issues of bullying and category-specific behavioral problems. Spielhagen has done an admirable job of compiling an array of articulate and interesting voices. The ten surprising conclusions in chapter 14, plus the recommendations offered there, are worth the price of the book and are must reads on this topic. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduate students, and above. * Choice Reviews *
Military academies, Catholic schools, and fancy prep schools have all successfully run single-sex schools: So why not public schools too This valuable book explores fully and richly the issues, methods, and effects on kids of going to school with their own genderand how it works. Valuable stuff!! -- Bruce S. Cooper, PhD, emeritus professor and vice chair, Division of Administration, Policy and Urban Education, Fordham University
Here is a book that offers a necessary and objective assessment of an approach that is gaining increased interest among parents and educators nationwide. Free of ideology, it cautiously adds to the knowledge base of what single-sex classes potentially can offer girls and boys while raising questions that need to be further explored. -- Rosemary Salomone, Kenneth Wang Professor of Law, St. John's University, author of Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking,Single-Sex Schooling
This excellent edited volume is a must-have resource for any educator interested in single-sex classes and education. This focused, balanced book is a must-read comprehensive introduction to the nuances, complexities and successes of single-sex classes! -- Sally M. Reis Ph.D, Interim Vice Provost for Academic Administration; Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor; University Teaching Fellow, University of Connecticut

Author Bio

Frances R. Spielhagen, Ph.D., is associate professor of education and director of the Center for Adolescent Research and Development at Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, NY. Dr. Spielhagen is Editor-in-Chief of the Middle Grades Research Journal.