All any child ever hears from his or her parent is “study hard, you need a good education!” or “you will not get into college without a good education!” Parents are adamant about a “good education,” but what constitutes this common term? It seems that the best education should come from an environment where a child learns for the sake of learning. It should be a learning environment where the child is able to be himself/herself while being able to develop the necessary social and intellectual skills in a place that mirrors the world in which they will have to succeed in the future. Single gender schools lack the diversity of the outside world merely because they are a segregated environment by design. This lack of diversity can create a myopic education thereby depriving the student of the necessary skills required beyond the classroom.
Many studies have been constructed that show that single gender schools improve the learning environment and test scores for female students in math and science. Girls become more comfortable in the classroom in subjects previously labeled “male” subjects. They become confident and competitive in these areas later on in life. However, these are the only documented improvements from these studies on single gender schools. The research does not show a significant improvement in the arts for either males or females. In fact, there is no considerable evidence that boys attending all male schools see any academic benefit.
The cited improvement in math and science must be balanced with how much females flourish overall in single-sex schools. Some of the co-ed social structure and interactions can help to provide a more balanced atmosphere. Girls and boys interact differently and have dissimilar social priorities. These differences can serve as a necessary counterbalance to the typical high school gossip, drama and sometimes mean spiritedness.
The imposed lack of interaction between genders in the classroom in an all-girls or all-boys school results in several disadvantages. Respective students are only engaging in conversation with people of their own gender. It is more likely to have contrasting viewpoints in classrooms that are diverse, thereby leading to more robust discussions and depth of learning. In truth, there are many discussions in which it is necessary to have the opinions and/or points of view of the other gender in order to gain a different perspective.
If the student continues in a single gender educational environment at every level, he/she is missing the opportunity to broaden their educational experience. The adjustment to working with and coexisting with different people in a real-life setting, like the workforce, may prove to be harder in adulthood than if the adjustment were made during adolescence. It is not lost that there are two sides to every argument. There does exist evidence that single-sex education helps a select group of individuals. However, looking at the education standpoint from a holistic view, most students would benefit from the diversity of a co-ed environment.