Coeducation
Coeducation is the integrated education of men and women at the same school facilities. Co-ed is a shortened adjectival form of co-educational, and the word co-ed is sometimes also used as a noun to refer to a female college student in the United States. Before the 1960s, many private institutions of higher education restricted their enrollment to a single sex. Indeed, most institutions of higher education — regardless of being public or private — restricted their enrollment to a single sex at some point in their history.
Coeducation in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, most schools are coeducational today. In England the first public coeducational boarding school was Bedales School founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley and coeducational since 1898. The Scottish Dollar Academy claims to be the first coeducational boarding school in the UK (in 1818). Many previously single-sex schools have begun to accept both sexes in the past few decades; for example, Clifton College began to accept girls in 1987.
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Coeducation in the United States
The first coeducational institution of higher education in the United States was Franklin College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, established in 1787. Its first enrollment class in 1787 consisted of 78 male and 36 female students. Among the latter was Rebecca Gratz, the first Jewish female college student in the United States. However, the college began having financial problems and it was reopened as an all-male institution. It became coed again in 1969 under its current name, Franklin and Marshall College.
The longest continuously operating coeducational school in the United States is Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, which was established in 1833. The first four women to receive bachelor's degrees in the United States earned them at Oberlin in 1841. Later, in 1862, the first African-American woman to receive a bachelor's degree (Mary Jane Patterson) also earned it from Oberlin College.
The University of Iowa became the first public or state university in the United States to admit women, and for much of the next century, public universities, and land grant universities in particular, would lead the way in higher education coeducation. Many other early coeducational universities, especially west of the Mississippi River, were private, such as Carleton College (1866), Texas Christian University (1873), and Stanford University (1891).
At the same time, according to Irene Harwarth, Mindi Maline, and Elizabeth DeBra, "women's colleges were founded during the mid- and late-19th century in response to a need for advanced education for women at a time when they were not admitted to most institutions of higher education" [1]. A notable example is the prestigious Seven Sisters. Of the seven, Vassar College is now co-educational and Radcliffe College has merged with Harvard University. Wellesley College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Bryn Mawr College, and Barnard College are still women's colleges.
Other notable women's colleges that have become coeducational include Ohio Wesleyan Female College in Ohio, Skidmore College, Wells College, and Sarah Lawrence College in New York state, Goucher College in Maryland and Connecticut College.
In U.S. slang, "Coed" is an informal and increasingly archaic term for a female student attending a formerly all-male college or university (or any university).
U.S. institutions of higher education coeducational from establishment
- Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1787) (began as a coeducational school but the coed policy was soon changed and it would take 182 years before women were again permitted to enroll in the school)
- Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, (1833) (usually credited as the first consistently coeducational school in the United States)
- Alfred University, Village of Alfred in western New York State, (1836)
- Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, (1837)
- Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, (1837)
- Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, (1844)
- Olivet College, Olivet, Michigan, (1844)
- Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, (1847)
- Urbana University, Urbana, Ohio, (1850)
- Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, (1853)
- Hamline University, Red Wing, Minnesota, (1854)
- Bates College (1855), Lewiston, Maine, (first woman to receive a bachelor's degree in New England in 1869)
- University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, (1856)
- Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (1865) (first woman enrolled in 1870, first woman graduated in 1873)
- Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, 1866)
- Boston University (1869)
- Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (1870)
- Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, (1873)
- Stanford University, Stanford, California, (1891)
- University of Chicago (1892)
- Rice University, Houston, Texas, (1912)
- Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, (1948)
Years U.S. educational institutions became coeducational
- Schools that were previously all-female are listed in italics.
| 1860 | University of Wisconsin | |
| 1867 | DePauw University Indiana University | |
| 1868 | University of Iowa Law School | |
| 1869 | Northwestern University Ohio University | |
| 1870 | Michigan State University University of Michigan Washington University in St. Louis | |
| 1871 | Pennsylvania State University | |
| 1872 | Wesleyan University (Until 1912, when it became all male once again.) | |
| 1876 | University of Pennsylvania | |
| 1877 | Ohio Wesleyan University | |
| 1883 | Bucknell University Middlebury College | |
| 1885 | University of Mississippi | |
| 1888 | George Washington University Tulane University Pharamaceutical School University of Kentucky | |
| 1892 | Auburn University | |
| 1893 | Macalester College University of Connecticut Johns Hopkins University Graduate School University of Alabama University of Tennessee | |
| 1894 | Boalt Hall | |
| 1895 | University of Pittsburgh University of South Carolina | |
| 1897 | University at Buffalo Law School University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (graduate students) | |
| 1900 | University of Virginia (nursing only) | |
| 1902 | Miami University | |
| 1909 | Tulane University School of Dentistry | |
| 1914 | Tulane University Medical School University of Pennsylvania Medical School | |
| 1918 | College of William and Mary University of Georgia | |
| 1920 | University of Virginia (graduate students) | |
| 1922 | Northeastern University, Boston School of Law | |
| 1930 | Roanoke College | |
| 1931 | Seattle University | |
| 1942 | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Wake Forest University | |
| 1946 | James Madison University (de facto) | |
| 1947 | Florida State University University of Florida | |
| 1952 | Lincoln University | |
| 1953 | Georgia Tech | |
| 1953 | Harvard Law School | |
| 1963 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (all programs) University of North Carolina at Greensboro | |
| 1964 | Texas A&M University | |
| 1966 | James Madison University (official) | |
| 1968 | Virginia Tech | |
| 1969 | Connecticut College Franklin and Marshall College Georgetown University Kenyon College La Salle University MacMurray College Princeton University Siena Heights University Trinity College (Connecticut) University of the South Vassar College Yale University | |
| 1970 | Boston College Johns Hopkins University Rutgers University University of Mary Washington University of Virginia (all programs) | |
| 1971 | Brown University | |
| 1972 | Davidson College Dartmouth College Harvard College - Harvard University Radford University Texas Woman's University University of Notre Dame Washington and Lee University Law School Wesleyan University | |
| 1974 | Fordham College /United States Merchant Marine Academy | |
| 1976 | Claremont McKenna College United States Air Force Academy United States Coast Guard Academy United States Military Academy United States Naval Academy | |
| 1982 | Mississippi University for Women | |
| 1983 | Columbia College at Columbia University | |
| 1985 | Washington and Lee University | |
| 1991 | Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology | |
| 1993 | The Citadel | |
| 1997 | Virginia Military Institute | |
| 2001 | Notre Dame College | |
| 2002 | Hood College | |
| 2004 | Immaculata College | |
| 2005 | Lesley College of Lesley University Wells College | |
| 2006 | Valley Forge Military College | |
| 2007 | Randolph-Macon Woman's College |
Coeducation in Canada
Years Canadian educational institutions became coeducational
| 1884 | McGill University |
| 1980 | Royal Military College of Canada |
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Coeducation in China
The first coeducational institution of higher learning in China was the Nanjing Higher Normal Institute which renamed National Central University in 1928 and Nanjing University 1949. For thousands of years in China, education, especially higher education, was the privilege of men. In the 1910s women's universities were established such as Ginling Women's University and Peking Girl's Higher Normal School, but coeducation was still prohibited.
Tao Xingzhi, the Chinese advocator of coeducation, proposed The Audit Law for Women Students (規定女子旁聽法案) on the meeting of Nanjing Higher Normal Institute hold on December 7th, 1919. He also proposed the university to recruit girl students. They were supported by the president Guo Bingwen, academic director Liu Boming, and such famous professors as Lu Zhiwei and Yang Xingfo, and were opposed by many famous men of the time.
Finally, the meeting passed the law and decided to recruit women students next year. Nanjing Higher Normal Institute enrolled eight coeducational Chinese women students in 1920. In the same year Peking University also began to allow women audit students. The most notable female student of that time may be Chien-Shiung Wu.
After 1949, when the Communist Party of China controlled mainland China, almost all schools and universities became coeducational. In recent years, however, many girl schools and women colleges have again emerged.
Co-education in Hong Kong
St. Paul's Co-educational College was the first co-educational secondary school in Hong Kong. It was founded in 1915 as St. Paul's Girls' College. At the end of the World War II operation was temporarily merged with St. Paul's College, which is a boys' school. When class at the campus of St. Paul's College was resumed, it continued to be co-educational, and changed to its present name.
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Single-sex education
Single-sex education is the practice of conducting education where male and female students attend separate classes or in separate buildings or schools. The practice was predominant before the mid-twentieth century, particularly in secondary education and higher education. Single-sex education is often advocated on the basis of tradition, as well as religious or cultural values. It is practiced in many parts of the world. A number of studies starting in the 1990s are showing statistical data that children from single-sex schools are outperforming students from coeducational schools, although some studies also say that these are non-conclusive. In 2002, because of these studies and bipartisan support, the US law of 1972 was revoked and funding was given in support of the single-sex option. There are now associations of parents who are advocating for single-sex education.
Short history
- 1960s: mandated shift to coeducation in many Western countries; Reasons: coeducation is a less expensive way of schooling the baby boomers; the thrust towards gender equality
- 1972: US Law making coeducation in public schools obligatory
- 1990s-2000s: some studies supporting single-sex education: children of single sex schools are outperforming children in coeducational schools
- US: “Together or separate?” (Cornelius Riordan 1990)
- Germany: “Was coeducation a historical error?” (Der Spiegel 1998)
- Australia: 20-year study of 270,000 students (2000)
- England: The National Foundation for Educational Research (2002)
- France: “The Pitfalls of Mixed Education” (Fize 2003)
- US Law of 2002: revocation of obligatory coeducation in public education; 3 million dollars were allotted to support the single-sex school option
In the U.S., single sex education receives bipartisan support. Hillary Clinton said in June 2001: “Our long-term goal has to be to make single-sex education available as an option for all children, not just for children of parents wealthy enough to afford private schools.”
Sex differences
The practitioners of single sex school state that boys and girls learn differently.[citation needed]
Academics
Many supporters of single-sex education hold that it can help students learn more effectively.
Several studies show that single-sex groupings deliver advantages to students. Dr Rowe, a Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, presented the VCE Data Project – a population study of 270,000 Year 12 students’ achievements on 53 subjects of the Victorian Certificate of Education over a 6-year period (1994-1999). The findings indicated that after adjusting for measures of students’ ‘abilities’ and school sector (government, Catholic and independent), the achievements of boys and girls in single-sex environments were, on average, 15-22 percentile TER ranks higher than the achievements of their counterparts in co-educational settings.
According to defenders of coeducation, segregated learning facilities are inherently unequal. System bias will reinforce gender stereotypes and perpetuate societal inequalities in opportunities afforded to males and females. Single-sex schools in fact accentuate gender-based educational limitations and discrimination. Boys' schools do not offer cheerleading or home economics classes, while girls' schools do not offer football or wood shop.
However, gender roles can be subverted in a single-sex environment; boys will be more likely to pursue the arts, and girls more likely to pursue math and science. Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir, an Icelandic educator who introduced single-sex kindergarten to Iceland in 1989, stated: "Both sexes seek tasks they know. They select behavior they know and consider appropriate for their sex. In mixed [i.e. coed] schools, each sex monopolizes its sex-stereotyped tasks and behavior so the sex that really needs to practice new things never gets the opportunity. Thus, mixed-sex schools support and increase the old traditional roles." In one school which shifted from coeducation to single sex education, the girls who once didn't want to take up playing the trumpet, took courage to take it up in the single sex system and became very good at it.
Without the presence of the opposite sex, students will be less distracted from their academics.
Female graduates of single-sex schools go on to achieve greatness in typically male-dominated careers and statistically obtain more high-ranking positions in Fortune 1000 companies than girls who were educated in a co-educational setting.
Socialization
Critics of the single sex education argue that without the presence of the opposite sex, students are denied a learning environment representative of real life. This deprives them of the opportunity to develop skills for interaction with peers of all genders in their work environment and fosters ignorance and prejudice towards the other gender.
However, the defenders argue that socialization is not the same as putting together, but is a matter of educating in habits such as respect, generosity, fairness, loyalty, courtesy, etc. And this can be done with more success knowing the distinct tendencies of boys and girls.
Defenders also state that there are more teenage pregnancies and sexual harassment cases in coeducational schools. Catholics usually refer to teachings of Pope Pius XI in 1929. He wrote an encyclical entitled "Christian Education of Youth" where he addressed the topic of coeducation. He said: "False also and harmful to Christian education is the so-called method "co-education". This too, by many of its supporters is founded upon naturalism and the denial of original sin."
External links
- National Association for single sex public education
- Diferenciada.org Single-sex Education Forum
- Coeducation Revisited for the 21st Century — by Fr. John McCloskey
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