EnMasse

[Tehanu]

What do people think? The Toronto District School Board is planning to institute boys-only classes, and an all-boys grade school, as well as "boy-friendly" classes (!) to help reduce the drop-out rate among boys and young men.

There have been plenty of studies showing that girls do better academically (although maybe not socially) in all-girls schools. Is it likely to work in reverse? What are the social consequences of gender-segregated schools?

[JPG]

I attended an all-boys (Catholic school). I'm not saying I neccesarily love this idea, but I don't think it had any negative effects on us. In fact, I'd say my overall impression is that some of the social dynamics were more positive than what I understand co-ed schools are like socially.
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We are the youth, we'll take your fascism away...

[F.]

Is all just code for "get the little malcontents out of the regular classes so that we can salvage the few students with potential"?

[Tehanu]

I don't know. The more I think about this, the more I think it's just likely to reinforce negative aspects of gender socialization. And I suspect that the higher drop-out rate among male students has plenty to do with other factors (like socio-economic status, and social pressures/stereotyping of males) that may not be effectively addressed by separating them from girls. I feel similarly about all-girls schools, overall.

[Feral]

I'd recommend not fussing too much on reinforcing negative aspects of gender socialization. Most of that crap comes for fathers and peer groups... heavy on the peer groups. All the teachers of my acquaintance complain bitterly about it, and about the fact (it may or may not be one) that the schools just don't seem to be able to do anything at all to even begin to counterbalance it.

I do not, however, see anything in the article that supports this notion that separate schooling would have the effects claimed for it. I see calls for male teachers, hands-on environments, portable desks, along with an anecdote about hand-shaking. I fail to see how any of these things require separate schooling or how incorporating all of these suggestions into mixed schooling would negatively affect girls.

Looking at the report itself (or what was billed as the report), all I see is some vague hand-waving at a "gap between research and educators." I know first hand how much of a gap can exist between research and educators. Sometimes I wonder if educators read at all. More frequently I wonder if school administrators believe anyone else reads at all. Perhaps Mr. Spence was more verbose in person.

[elmateo]

I suspect that this is piggy-backing on the idea of the black schools and had some fuzzy logic that "problem A has similar characteristics as problem B, therefore solution A should work as solution B". This comparison fails because they only looked at the very surface characteristics such as test scores and drop out rates, while completely ignoring the fundamental rational behind a black school is that there are significant racially-based social impediments. Whether or not the Black schools truly works or not, or where you argue an effort to solve racial-class based problems, you can at least acknowledge that the issues it is trying to deal with are significantly different than the issue of male success-rates at school.

Generally, I'm very suspect of this initiative and its chances of success. I'm also cautious as a slippery-slope, being conscious that one of the criticisms of the black school was that the TDSB will end up with a series of segregated public schools rather than an isolated project designed to challenge/change one specific area of social-racism.

Male success-rates in schools is something to be aware of and I think is a concern. I'm less confident in being able to argue one way or another - as I'm also a bit cautious of arguing that masculine stereotyping is the cause.

[swirrlygrrl]

In theory, I have no problem with all male classrooms, or even all male schools. I say this as someone who seriously considered attending an all female high school. I liked the focus on academics, the uniforms (well, I didn't actually like the uniforms, but I liked the idea that my clothes wouldn't be the subject of attention - big problem for me in junior high), and the more small, sheltered environment it seemed to offer, with all female teachers.

Ultimately, I decided to go to the large, unisex high school in my area known for its trade programs and the stabbing of a student on campus a few years earlier. It was good for me - it frightened me, and challenged me, and made me grow as a person. And I ultimately think I got a better education because of it (that, plus a few top notch teachers). But I wouldn't want to present other people from being schooled in a single sex environment, and I think that it could be a very empowering place for some people.

But I do generally have problems with sweeping statements about gender differences, such as those seen by Spence in the articles I've seen on this issue, that are being used to justify the initiative. Boys are active! Girls can sit still! Therefore, schools are hostile to boys! As though there weren't aspects of current teaching methods that don't fit the stereotypes of what works for girls (I seem to recall a lot of competition in my school days). And as though there isn't a range of personalities, preferences and learning styles within and between genders that should be accomodated as possible in any classroom.

Also, I think this quote from an article in Globe and Mail suspect:

[Change]

I just want to say some gay boys would be devastated if they are forced to only have male classmates, the teasing/bullying would continue till no end. I don't know why it is okay to make sweeping generalization about how boys and girls are supposed to learn.

*edited
I also just want to add do we really think putting so much weight on gender differences is a good message for kids, I think not. Kids are already filled with gender stereotypes.
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What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach, so you get what we had here last week which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don't like it any more than you men.

[Tehanu]

[elmateo]

Seems like an interesting person. I'd wonder though how much intensity and sensitivity he brings to the projects he starts - and I do not mean to question how he deals one on one with students (which from what I quickly read seems to be sensitive to life for many 'at risk' youths) - because this seems very much like an idea moving too quickly without thinking through on the big picture.

I suspect it is meant well, but I'm not sure the complexity of what is being proposed and its significance really has been taken in. And on that I return to what I think is an underlying problem at the TDSB: the black-focused school is being turned into an analogous case, thus the big picture thinking is thought to already have been done. Drop outs and low success rates are seen to be similar self-esteem and empowerment issues in both cases - thus creating environments that make the student population more similar allows for the educators to speak-to the problems more directly and focus their energies on creating an empowering and supportive environment for a less diverse group of students.

I'm not particularly sold that this is really what is happening in public schools. Gender identity and gender roles are changing/shifting, and in some ways dramatically, and society as a whole may not necessarily be consciously dealing with aspects of this in a positive manner. Male students definitely are going to be influenced by shifts within society. But more broadly, is it necessarily males historically 'underperforming' or our definitions and expectations of 'success' that are changing as well?

To put this into a football analogy - is it the same game, we have just moved the goal posts back further?

There is a huge push for post-secondary education - mostly to delay entry into the workforce and promote an image of the 'knowledge based economy' (ie absorbing overproduction of material wealth by creating new bounds of immaterial wealth and assigning greater value to the immaterial) - that has created a new criteria of success. Historically the masculine identity enabled both the 'science-geek' and the 'factory-man', one who seeks post-secondary education and the other who finds work either with or without a highschool diploma. The bounds of the feminine identity have been challenged and have been changing significantly much at the same time as the expansion of post-secondary education. While our political-economic shift has eliminated one path to a moreorless successful masculine identity - the factory man - it has not redressed what to really do with that identity, instead of progressively dealing with this issue we have limited opportunities for these men and labelled it socially dysfunctional. Females succeed to university more because the contemporary 'feminine' construct developed along-side a post-secondary expansion and played a big part in why a post-secondary expansion was necessary. More workers available with less real work to give them means more 'competition' (new criteria of 'skilled labour') and a greater emphasis on 'knowledge production' vs. material production (more university to train knowledge production).

Do we solve this by creating 'male-schools'? I believe the issue is significantly more profound if the above has any merit. The continued decline of manufacturing and the rise of low-paying service industry jobs is making a gendered (recent) historically successful identity servile and denigrated. Making someone 'feel good' and empowered about that identity is a little more than hard, it's useless (from a social-economic equality perspective, from capital's perspective it's great news).

[elmateo]

I also want to note, I realize the above ascribes 'feminine' to the female and the 'masculine' to the male in a very bad simplification of gender and sex. And while that is a generalization that excludes and is problematic in many cases, it was done consciously because I suspect that even though the bounds of femininity have changed a lot, most females are raised/influenced significantly in the feminine and males in the models of masculinity. Further, this plan is being developed to deal with issues within masculinity and equate it to males.

I do not mean to undermine or ignore important criticisms mentioned above that question what happens when the male sex does not fit into the masculine identity (and the numerous combinations possible between sex and gender). Just to add a different perspective on the consequence what is happening to masculine identities, educational goals, and the male sex in our schools.

[Caissa]

Both of our sons are on the autism spectrum. I think they are best served in co-educational environments. Neither fits into the typical masculine stereotype which is often the culture in an all male school.

[Simon Vallée]

I'm never in favor of segregation in school, I believe schools should be safe environments where people can interact with others, some similar and some different to themselves. I also oppose the black-only school on similar grounds, as I think it reinforces the fragmentation of society and the ghettoization of different communities instead of integration.

There is a problem with boys' lack of success in class and I think it has many causes. Boys tend to be more active and "troublesome" than girls especially when younger and asking them to remain silent in class for long periods of time may not be the best way to get them to hang on to class. At the same time, there is the problem of mentality and culture here, men as a whole have been widely stereotyped as morons in popular culture, and the few men put forward in the media as academically intelligent are typically in other clichés that make boys not want to emulate them, namely socially-misfit geeks and gays (not saying that being gay is bad, but heterosexual boys don't want to emulate gays as a whole so it's a negative for them). This is reinforced amongst kids and teens by themselves, I know personally of cases of intelligent kids who have sabotaged their own academic success because they didn't want to pass as "nerds" amongst their friends.

Anyway, many propositions have been made to help boys do better in school. Popular culture may be too hard to modify, but measures like increasing male teachers (easier said than done, for multiple reasons), being more focused on projects instead of abstract education and more competition and activity have been promoted. However, the big problem I have with this is that it presumes that just because boys as a whole might do better under such a scheme, they seem to say every boy would do better and should be put in those classes... That's the kind of absolutism I disagree with, gender may have statistical effects, but there's more variation between individuals of a same gender than between the average of the two genders. If they want to do a new curriculum focused on helping boys as a whole, alright, but don't force every boy in it and don't shut it girls out of it. Try it and make it accessible to all, some boys will prefer the traditional method of teaching and some girls will prefer the new curriculum, it would be a shame to deny them the methods they would prefer to be taught with just because of what's between their legs.
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Québécois, socialist, sovereignist and metalhead.

[Feral]

[Vundo Draxon]

I'm imagining that the schools I attended were male-only. The only positive thing I can think of right now is that we likely wouldn't have done the dance unit in juniour high phys. ed. class. I think I might have turned out alright if I had never danced to "Cadillac Ranch" but that's about it as far as good things go.

If regular public schools are not serving the educational needs of boys then it's time to change the regular public schools.

[Cartman]

If I had gone to a male-only school, I would have showed up even less often than I did in the co-ed environment. As it was, I dropped in about 50% of the time and found that effort to be a waste. It made more sense to actually hold down a job to save for university.

[swallow]

This seems to be a North America wide debate. Briarpatch has an interesting article in its current education issue about single-gender education. (You'll all forgive me for posting a Saskatchewan source in a thread about events in Toronto, right? )

[TS.]

Welcome back, Swallow! Good to see you again!
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[Hephaestion]

Saskatchewan???? How on earth did you end up there, Swallow?
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"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[bagkitty]

[TS.]

[Tehanu]

Hey, some of my favourite people are from Saskatchewan.

Antonia Zerbisias takes on the boys' school issue:

[fork]

Here's a book excerpt. I was interested in whether Spence thought boys' movement requirements were something innate, a result of gender socialization, or a combination of factors. I was hoping for something of, say, this calibre. From what I read of the excerpt, it's kind of shocking that Toronto is actually changing/setting educational policy based on this facile level of discourse, especially considering the research that's out there.

Spence's focus is on literacy success, which is only a problem for boys if we narrow the definition of success to good marks in school. When we look at the wider world and the overwhelmingly dominant male voice, I don't see any deficit in male writing, or speaking. So this problem either somehow corrects itself post-schooling, or else the boys are hitching a ride on the Great Big Wave of Male Privilege and Presumed Male Competence. Either way, it requires no intervention; it certainly doesn't merit diversion of resources (which Spence calls for) from truly disadvantaged kids.

Some links that I found interesting:
Single-Sex Education vs. Gender-Based Instruction
Inclusive Schooling and Gender by Janice Wallace
Sarah Mead's The Problem with Gender-Based Education Referenced by swallow's Briarpatch article. Provides more of a critique of Sax, and also links to this on the neuroscience aspect (Popular Myth 2: Schools are Designed to Suit Girls' Brains).
The Boy Crisis as good ol' feminist bashing:
A War Against Boys? by Michael Kimmel
School Success by Gender: A Catalyst For the Masculinist Discourse by Pierrette Bouchard, Isabel Boily, and Marie-Claude Proulx.

[swallow]

[Feral]

[Raos]

Those numbers don't seem irreconcilable to me. Are those numbers from StatsCan an annual drop out rate? If you lose 12.2% of boys each year in high school, you're left with 67.7% of boys by the end of three years of high school, which corresponds quite well with the graduation rate Tehanu quoted.

[Feral]

[Rexdale_Punjabi]

a school with no girls = a school Id never go to.

im the target group thats all I have to say