Single-sex classes
By Rose McCann
The NSW Department of Education's recent announcement that it will increase the number of single-sex maths and science classes for female students in public schools raises several issues.
Certainly there is a large body of research showing that female students are severely disadvantaged in mixed classrooms — in everything from curriculum content to classroom organisation, allocation of resources and the amount of attention they receive from teachers.
Self-esteem and personal confidence are widely recognised as qualities which bear on the ability of female students to learn and perform well academically. Given the low proportion of female secondary students choosing science and maths subjects, separating female from male students, many believe, is an important way of attracting more girls into doing these subjects and improving their academic performance.
But gender equity in education requires more than such tinkering as simply the provision of single-sex classes or even single-sex schools.
On a personal level, many women would prefer for themselves, and for their daughters, a single-sex school environment. The advantages of a relatively supportive environment free from sex-based harassment and the dominant presence of boys and their culture, and which can facilitate the joys of female collectivity, are indisputable.
But there is no hard evidence that such organisational formulas automatically produce higher academic performance. And the hard-won self-esteem girls may experience in such benign settings is constantly subverted by the overwhelming experience of living and working in an environment where women and girls' subordinate position is entrenched.
One of the problems in judging whether schoolgirls do better in a segregated environment is that single-sex schools in Australia are for the elite — either private schools for the daughters of the wealthy or selective schools for the already academically gifted. These students are already far more likely to choose maths and science options, and to perform well in them, than are girls who are socially and economically disadvantaged.
Another is whether it is really all that desirable for girls to participate more in the traditionally male-dominated job areas, and therefore to specialise in maths and sciences.
Many girls, despite all the prompting to the contrary, still prefer subjects and careers like the humanities, the "soft" sciences and caring professions like teaching and nursing, and for very laudable reasons.
Moreover, it is debatable that the employment growth areas are related to maths, science and technology. The big growth areas are the clerical, retail trade and service occupations — traditionally women's work, though undervalued to be sure.
Finally, the movement of women into "male" work domains does not necessarily ensure women workers high-powered, high-status or high-paying jobs, as labour market statistics depressingly confirm.
All of which is to say that the second-class status of women and girls requires for its remedy a comprehensive restructuring of society at every level. In that context, single-sex classes are a dewdrop in a desert.