Does Gender-Segregation in Classroom Lower Second Language Acquisition?

For decades, proponents of gender-segregation in classrooms have argued that separation of children by gender fosters a successful learning atmosphere. However, recent studies have shown that segregating classrooms by gender impacts student learning negatively.

The negative effects of separate classrooms are apparent in linguistics especially, where girls tend to develop strong academic abilities earlier than boys. Establishing gender-segregated classrooms denies boys and girls the opportunity to learn from each other, and reinforces the long-ago debunked idea that "separate but equal" is effective in institutions of learning.

Research conducted at Tel Aviv University suggests that girls help foster a stronger learning atmosphere in classrooms, and that both boys and girls benefit from being in mixed gender classes. The study found that test scores were higher overall in many areas, including reading comprehension, science and math, when boys and girls were in mixed classes. Test scores increased for both genders, and a high ratio of girls was linked to enhanced learning.

This data is supported by older education studies, which found that girls tend to excel in language arts as young children, while boys consistently develop later. This difference is true of children in many countries, and from many different linguistic backgrounds—not just in English-speaking high-income families with parents who can afford the cost of further education, be this at home, sending their children abroad or even via a distance learning program such as an online PhD education.

Whether the disparities in language acquisition are based in the brain or in upbringing, marked differences do exist between boys and girls, especially in elementary school classrooms. Listening to their female peers speak and interacting with them during classroom and playground activities helps boys to develop stronger language arts skills.

Schools who have attempted to institute gender-segregated classrooms have often seen an overall decrease in test scores, which shows that gender-segregation in schools is not effective for either boys or girls.

Another chief drawback of segregated classrooms is that they do not allow children to share their knowledge and experience with each other, but rather perpetuate gender-based cultural disparities. Learning how to interact with different people is seen as a key goal of education, especially in early childhood. Children who are deprived of the chance to interact with peers of different genders may have trouble relating to or communicating with individuals of the opposite gender later in life.

Many psychologists who focus on child and adolescent development have voiced concern that gender-segregated classrooms impact the social skills of students well into adulthood. They perpetuate unfounded stereotypes about how men and women are different, and contribute to gender-based prejudice.

The effects of gender-segregated teaching can have an impact on older students as well. Decreases in test scores occur in single-gender classrooms in both middle and high school, and grade point averages in general fall. This decrease in GPA can adversely affect students as they apply for college and scholarship opportunities. Depriving students of their best chances to enter excellent colleges and secure funding does them a disservice. The goal of public education should be to prepare individuals for successful careers and successful relationships, both of which are harmed by gender segregation.

Many of the ideas that proponents of gender-segregated classrooms have introduced into public discourse are nothing but old prejudices in new forms. These individuals argue that boys and girls are inherently different, and that they should thus be separated in classrooms. They argue that boys are more aggressive than girls, and that girls can only learn in cooperative environments. As the American Civil Liberties Union has noted in lawsuits against school districts with sex-segregated classrooms, none of these beliefs have been substantiated by science.

• But what do you think - should boys and girls be separated? Why or why not?

•  Have you noticed any differences in the way that males and females learn languages?

Blog post author
Brittany Lyons aspires to be a psychology professor, but decided to take some time off from grad school to help people learn to navigate the academic lifestyle. She currently lives in Spokane, Washington, where she spends her time reading science fiction and walking her dog.

Why I don’t like Second Life (by Jacqueline Goulbourne)

Imagine a world where you can make a cartoon avatar of yourself and do whatever you like in an international community of English speakers.

Well, it already exists, in Taiwan where I have spent most of my career teaching,  it's called ‘World of Warcraft‘ and the mission of almost every parent of teenagers there to wrest their kids off of it!  But imagine if something similar existed, primarily for education, business and sex.  That exists too and I’m fairly certain that it’s nothing we’d really want to get students involved in.

I’m sure many of you disagree and are using Second Life in your practice to good effect, so my intent is not to disrespect your work, but to explain the problems I have with Second Life and other such virtual worlds.

I first experimented with Second Life in 2003 when friends of mine had set up an experimental teacher training space.  I didn’t really get interested.  More recently I came across Second Life in a wee teacher training course I’m doing.  I fought against my inherent tendency to not engage with things that don’t resonate with me and decided to ‘join in’ and not be such a negative Nancy.  Although I have an aversion to ‘virtual worlds’ and to speaking through machines in any way (I don’t use telephones) I put this aside in order to try and retrieve any babies in this bathwater.

I Googled up Second Life and was met with this screen:

The user sees this screen with avatars that can be chosen.  Your avatar can be customised later on but I immediately took real exception to the prototype avatars that were presented for customisation.  These include a slightly scary rabbit, a robot and lots of white kids who clearly resembled extras from a 90s vampire film.  The only black woman present is wearing a short dress with a flower in her hair and high heeled shoes - a very different aesthetic to the white women presented.  One of the men has a shirt open to show rippling pecs but generally, the male figures are covered up.  For me, it doesn’t represent an acceptable aesthetic to present to students in my care, particularly young women.

There are two strands to my  misgivings: firstly the absence of ethnic diversity and secondly, the overt sexualisation of young women, in the Second Life avatar choices.   As a teacher joining in, I tried to choose an avatar that could represent my self without making myself ridiculous.  I’m 37, pretty fat, greying, and generally get dressed in the dark.  My choices ranged from avatars that mostly looked like a 14 year old version on myself: pale skinned, bone thin, and dressed in black with lots of eyeliner and it seemed undignified and self-abasing. 

I’m not scarred by the experience. But then I’m a confident, English-speaking adult.  I can articulate why I don’t want to be this 1990 version of myself and tried to change it.  Can we expect young, perhaps not so good at English students to raise their own misgivings to their educators or will they simply go along with what the teacher, or the authority wants them to do?  Thinking back to my time teaching junior high school girls in Taiwan, none of those prototype avatars is of Han Chinese or any other Taiwanese ethnicities.

What’s the message here?

White people (and the token African American) own English. You are different. Go get yourself a white identity to join our English-speaking world!

OK, yes, you can choose to brown/yellow/black up later if you want to, but that’s not the standard issue human in this community.

Don’t we want our students to come and sit at the table as equals? To join the English-speaking communities that they are passionate about?

In my Real Life classes, every kid is a beautiful prototype of the individual they want to become as they are: be they fat or thin, with braces, wearing unsexy clothes - with a wonderful inheritance of Chinese ethnicity, not something to be tagged on later, once they have chosen their ‘core’ avatar.

Am I over-thinking this?

Perhaps, but if we use these tools in the classroom, we are also raising the question of who ‘owns’ English.  We have to ask who funds a lot of these communities and to what business or political ends?  To promote ELT as a British, Australian, White American/European activity?  Why?

Is that congruent with our principles, desirable for our personal teaching contexts?

Cartoon images hurt as much as photographic images.

As a teacher I’m rarely didactic and I know I can’t change the world, but I am absolutely committed to making every child  in my care feel like they can be whoever they want to be and that includes valuing and celebrating every child’s individuality and identity and not promoting certain images as a norm within an educational context.