Unit 2. Co-education Key Vocabulary List

co-education, standardized collegiate co-education

types of schooling: single-sex schools/ segregated schools, mixed schools

religious schools

streaming

timetable, rigid timetable

socially divisive institution

equality

to scatter

core values

gender, gender issues, gender-fair instruction, gender-aware terms, to cater for both genders

to be flawed

to be sidelined by smb

counterparts

harassment, sexual harassment, to harass smb

career ambition

self-confidence

under-achievement

rigorous subjects

intake, to increase intake

academic results, academic ability, academic performance, academic competition

aptitude tests, to score higher in aptitude tests

domination, male-dominated teachers

to jump the queue

to gain access to smth

computer facilities

to the detriment of smth

implicit contradiction

sexism (the belief that men and women should be treated in a different way and are suited to different types of jobs and different positions in society)

inclination

formative years

to tend (to, towards)

aptitude tests

to gravitate towards their own sex

Text A

Co-education: A High Price to Pay

Research carried out in the Eighties indicated strongly that co-education was generally better for boys than for girls. The dangers of single-sex education for boys have often been stated, and there has long been an assumption that girls benefit from co-education in the same way. Recent research tells us that this assumption is wrong. Girls studying in co-educational schools can, it seems, pay a high price in diminished career ambition, poor self-confidence and under-achievement in subjects such as science and mathematics.

Girls’ schools are working hard to compete with the independent boys’ schools that are currently increasing their intake. Malborough, the pioneer, has increased its number of girls and begun admitting them at 13. The battle for girl pupils is growing fiercer all the time. Averil Burgess, head teacher of South Hampstead High School, believes parents need to consider the effect of mixed classroom learning on reinforcing gender “stereotypes”. She believes that in the halfway house type of co-education favoured by independent boys’ schools, men become “macho” and girls are forced to be inarticulate and passive. This is inevitable, she says, when the school is still run by the male-dominated senior teachers with little insight into gender education issues. She points to a study by professor Hoyle of London University showing how boys were allowed to jump the queue to gain access to limited computer facilities. As a result girl’s choice of career of computing suffers.

The recent introduction of co-education by Oxbridge colleges seems to have had the same harmful effect on girls’ academic performance as identified in schools. In 1958, 8,1 per cent of men and 7,9 of women won firsts. In 1973, the corresponding figures were 12 and 12,1 per cent. Since the mid-Eighties, when both men and women’s colleges have admitted members of the opposite sex, 16.1 per cent of men have gained firsts, but only 9,8 per cent of women. As Averil Burgess argues: “Maybe the girls fall too readily into the sock-washing and meal-providing mode for the benefit of male colleagues and to the detriment of their work. At least a single sex institution offers the freedom not to behave as a woman.”

No one is suggesting that boys should be restricted to single-sex education; co-education is here to stay. But boys’ schools with a minority of girls should take care to protect the latter from social domination by the boys. Parents should consider a single-sex school as a first option for their daughters, even if they choose co-education for their son. Maybe the implicit contradiction in that statement will only be resolved when girls’ schools admit boys on gender-aware terms.

Text B