The growth of single-sex education in the last decades is considerable not only in Europe and North America but

also all over the world. Single-sex education is defined as an environment of education which comprises a single gender, either all-female or all-male (NASSPE, 2008). However, this kind of education is controversial in that the majority of the countries around the world do not have used single-sex education and it might not be preferable for them; clearly, the co-education is the dominate approach of education systems around the world. People believe that to provide equality of education to both genders, they should go to the same school together. However, an enormous amount of research has shown scientifically that how single-sex education is much better than coeducation because of many different reasons; the evidences of showing how important to educate boys and girls separately in schools come up day after day and put this issue on the top of the priorities in education all over the world while creating new schools based on gender is debatable so far. Flashing back to the 1800s and 1900s, single sex education was the norm of the education system framework due to several reasons such as, traditions, and religions. Then, the education system changed institutionally in many countries in the 1900s.Remarkeably, it was mandatory in 1916 for student to attend co-educational schools in the Soviet Union, but for other countries school that was optional. Instead of attending a school that had only one gender, students were able to go to schools where boys and girls study together. However, in some classes there was still segregation; for example, girls were supposed to attend classes where they could enrich their skills in anticipation of domestic life. On the other hand, boys were attending classes where they could learn about commerce and agriculture and the skills that they should have in order to get a good job

outside. Day after day, the co-education system became evidently the norm. All over the world the norm of the education system is co-education except in Muslim nations and Korea (Riordan, 2002).And yet lately, the growth of single-sex education has dramatically increased especially in the developed countries. This shows that many countries are beginning to recognize the benefits of single-sex education. The way how girls and boys conduct socially and psychologically is clearly different. Also, in the matter of how each gender learns is also distinct somewhat When scientists want to do experiment on a mans blood, they cannot figure out if this man is White, Asian, Arabic, or Black. However, upon doing the same experiment on a man and a woman, surely they will say this sample A is for the man and the sample B is for the women. Scientifically, Man and womens body is created differently and each gender has its own hormones that response to many things in a different manner or way. So, the best way for men to learn is different from the best way for women to learn. Boys and girls think differently when they learn about their performance and accomplishments and putting them together can harm both of them without noticing because the result of that would not appear if it is not tracked. In his book entitled by Gender Differences in Personality Alan Feingold supports single sex education by saying that educational psychologists have consistently found that girls are likely to have higher standards in their classrooms, and they also evaluate their performance critically (Alan Feingold, 1993). Another research states a remarkable result which is boys in class are likely to have unrealistic high level of estimation of their own academic abilities and performances (Journal, 2002).

As an illustration of how boys and girls are different in the way they learn David Chadwell, Carolinas coordinator of single gender education, interprets this by saying that boys and girls literally see, hear, and sometimes act differently. As an example of how girls and boys see things differently, Chadwell says, The male eye is also drawn to cooler colors like silver, blue, black, grey, and brown and is attracted to movement objects; also, boys tend to create pictures of moving objects like spaceships. He goes on to add how girls see differently as well by explaining that female eye, although, is drawn to texture and colors warmer colors such as red, yellow, and orange- , and it does visualize with much more details than male eye does. Chadwell at the end of the interview Carol Kaufmann emphasizes that single sex education can optimize the learning (Reader's Digest). Similarly, Dr Leanoard Sax wrote a book entitled Why Gender Matters and clearly explained the differences between boys and girls not only in a class observation but also in medical experiments (2005). Interestingly, the discipline in the co-education school is lower than single sex education, according to a study of Dr. Katherine Bradley. She shows in her article how single-sex schools have more attendant students compared to co-educational schools. As can be seen below in this chart, it is remarkable to see the differences in school attendance between single sex education and co-education schools. Attendance Frequency by Sector and Gender Not Present Single-Sex Girls Coed Girls Total 19 34 53 Present 161 146 307 Total 180 180 360

Adopted from

To wrap up this point, this is clearly another piece of prove that single-sex education helps students to be disciplined by attending classes at schools and learning the knowledge that has been taught there. When you take a look at specific majors in any school whose system is co-education, you would find that girls tend to study artist, music, history, science society, education, and literature and boys, on the other hand, likely to study science, engineering, and law. Consequently, boys cannot be adept at what we call it girls majors and vice versa. To avoid this issue in our society we should teach girls and boys separately in primary, middle, and high school so that they will be able to find their appropriate major and become confident and creative in their majors in post-secondary school in the future. Sara Solnick in her book entitled Changes in Womens Majors from Entrance to Graduation at Womens and Coeducational Colleges finds out that women in co-education system are less likely to study in majors or fields traditionally dominated by boys(1995). Likewise, teacher Thomas Dees study points out that girls who are attending all-girls schools will probably specialize in fields that are commonly gender mixed, while other girls are attending co-education schools are likely to choose fields which are consistently referred to girls (2003). When you talk about school, two things always come up in your mind which are comfort and achievements. Comfort means that you are being yourself and acting without fear or shyness. Girls who are going to all-girls school find themselves with higher feelings of self-concept, and self-esteem. Usually, girls in all girls schools do not care as much about how they look as if they were in a coed school. On the other in the co-education school,

they will focus more on how they look in front of boys rather than how well they do in the school. On the top of that, if there are no boys who mostly naturally dominated the class and have louder voices in it, the result of that will be best learning environment for girls. Talking about factual information that identifies the real success of single-sex education makes the public be aware of the reasons that lead to spread single-sex school worldwide. One of the vital studies that have done on single- sex education so far is Dr. Katherine Bradleys research. Basically what Dr. Bradleys found is that statistical consideration of improvement in both reading and math for single-sex females school compared to mixed gender schools (2009). We know the fact that girls barely get higher grades in science courses, but what if this fact is somewhat wrong. In reality, girls tend to get higher grades in science if there are no boys around. They compete and strive themselves and learn science without fear from the stereotype that boys always get higher grades in science than girls. The equation has been changed in the single sex education a study shows. According Jermey Din Funn, girls in single sex school have been found doing much better in chemistry and biology classes than boys. Importantly, the girls performance in science at grade 9th is extraordinary in singlesex school. Interestingly, there is a relationship between leadership and practicing activities. Girls attitude has changed over years into better phase in many aspects and fields of the humans life. They are actually able to perform so much better in activities among girls only. In fact, they gain confidence, satisfaction, secure, self-assurance, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency.

To put things together a studys result points out that the possibility that girls tend to attend extracurricular activities is higher in single sex school. This kind of engagement in sort of activities has a positive effect on girls and likely to keep engaging in these activities even in collages years (Foster 2012). Even if many researchers have been advocated just to prove the beneficial of teaching girls and boys separately, it is still a common debatable contention. The oppositions of single-sex education claim that our society would suffer from problems and issues between the two genders as a consequence of segregation. The advocates of co-education school believe that single sex schools tend to make invisible obstacles and barriers of socializing both girls and boys. Actually, it is common myth that is repeated over and over but in reality there is no such a problem as it can be seen from oppositions of single sex school side. Girls and boys are exposed to each other every day in the home, restaurant, community, summer camp, and many places in the society. So, the segregation happens only in the education because of the beneficial from it. It cannot be ignored the fact that girls has different areas in the brain grow more rapidly compared to boys and vise versa. For instance, boys are good at learning science at early ages and understand it more easily than girls do. Girls, on the other hand, have the ability to learn literature and memorizing vocabulary better than boys do. As shown above, single sex-education has more advantageous with respect to attendance and achievement. Also, attending same sex school gives student the opportunity to gain confidence and self-esteem which is vital for the students future. Even if people who is in favor of co-education school bring to our attention some good points about but they still not based on strong research. I admit that the common system of education in the

world is coeducation but the chance that gives to apply single-sex education is still vulnerable. And once we have single-sex education with irreproachable and imaginative approach of teaching, mankind will get the best education ever and the stereotypes about both girls and boys in the education will be vanished.

Bibliography

C. Riordan (2011). The Value of Single Sex Education: Twenty Five Years of High Quality Research, Third International Congress of the European Association for Single Sex Education, Warsaw, Poland.

Eva Pomerantz, Ellen Altermatt, & Jill Saxon, "Making the grade but feeling distressed: gender differences in academic performance and internal distress," Journal of Educational Psychology, volume 94, number 2, pages 396404, 2002. Alan Feingold, "Gender differences in personality: a meta-analysis," Psychological Bulletin, volume 116, pages 429-456, 1994. How Boys and Girls Learn Differently : single gender education, single sex classrooms, education, high schools, By Carol Kaufmann from Reader's Digest Sax, Leanoard (2005). Why Gender Matters. New York: Broadway Books Solnick ,Sara, (1995) Changes in Womens Majors from Entrance to Graduation at Womens and Coeducational Colleges, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48(3), 505-14. Dee, Thomas S, (2005) A Teacher Like Me: Does Race, Ethnicity or Gender Matter?," American Economic Review, 95 (2), 158-165.

Grace A. Foster April, 2012The Effects of Single-Sex Education on Short and Long Term Extracurricular Participation An Honors Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Elon University Honors Program