Exam results are not affected by the fact that a student attends a single-sex school or a co-education classroom, a new study conducted in the UK suggested last week. While girls at girls-only schools were slightly more likely than girls in mixed schools to gain five or more O-levels at grades A to C, this advantage did not carry through to further and higher education.
There was no impact of single-sex schooling on maths test scores at age 16, nor did single-sex schooling make it more likely for pupils to gain any A-levels at all, to get university degree by age 33 or to enter high-status occupations.
This research, funded by the British Economic and Social Research Council, was based on data collected by National Child Development Study (NCDS).
Alice Sullivan, researcher at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies - a resource centre based at the Institute of Education in London - and teaching fellow, said that the research "does not support the suggestion that achievement is higher in single-sex schools".
On a different note, research conducted by the Institute of Education's Centre for Longitudinal Studies among 13,000 individuals, found out that students who attended single-sex schools in the UK were more likely to study subjects not traditionally associated with their gender than those who went to co-educational schools. In fact, at age 16, girls in girls' schools in the UK were more likely to obtain maths and science A-levels, and boys in boys' schools more liable to gain A-levels in English and modern languages than their peers in co-educational schools.
Dr Sullivan said: "Single-sex schools seemed more likely to encourage students to pursue academic paths according to their talents rather than their gender, whereas more gender-stereotyped choices were made in co-educational schools".
Researcher Diana Leonard says that, although having been to a single-sex school is not significantly linked to a gender atypical occupation, girls from single-sex schools do get higher wages in later life. "This could be because they are carrying out more technical or scientific roles even within female-dominated jobs, for example, becoming science teachers rather than French teachers, or because they have learned to be more self-confident in negotiating their wages and salaries," said Prof. Leonard.
Other findings showed that, while both sexes were less likely to truant in single-sex schools, boys in boys' schools were more likely to dislike school than boys in co-educational schools.