Single versus Coed Gender Education

Single-gender education refers to the delivery of instruction to members of the same sex in isolation from members of the opposite sex, whereas coed gender education refers to instructional delivery to males and females simultaneously. Although gender grouping is done at both schoolwide and classroom-specific levels, this entry focuses on the former.

The issue of single versus coed gender education has practical implications for schooling, yet most stake-holders' rationale for making a choice between options has more often than not been an issue of politics and economics rather than pedagogy. In the modern era, but prior to the 20th century, formal education at all levels was decidedly single gender—worldwide. Coeducation has since become common practice and is more often the instructional option of choice, especially among public educational institutions. In the early 1900s, public school coeducation across the globe was advanced through the promise of political equality for democratically educated citizenries. Less idealistic but no less evident, coeducation in the West was used as a vehicle for cultural assimilation. It was a response to the waves of European and Asian immigration that threatened to make over America's colonial heritage. Furthermore, the Depression made compulsory education and coeducation emblematic of good business. After all, the logic went, coeducation required fewer schools, teachers, and support staff.

With the national turn toward coeducation, single-gender education became the province of private, often religious schools, especially in the United States. Catering to members of elite communities, private and religious schools monopolized single-gender education. The nation's elite private and religious single-gender schools filled their classrooms by suggesting the firestorm of adolescent courtship detracted from the essential academic tasks of schooling until declining economic circumstance in the 1970s and 1980s forced them to join the march to coeducation. Toward the end of the century, however, legislation and policy in several countries, including the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, reflected a resurgence of interest in private and public single-gender education.