The decision on the selection of schools is one difficult decision that most parents struggle to make. All the same, it is a decision they all have to make before introducing their children to schools. Every parent has a desire to put their children through the best when it comes to education. This includes introducing them to the best schools and the best environments that support their academic progress. Specifically, parents struggle to decide between choosing a mixed-gender school and single-sex school, among other factors. The topic of single versus mixed-gender schools can be traced back to the traditional ways of education before modern schooling. This topic is particularly important because the education of a child is determined by the foundation he/ she gets in the initial stages. The people interacting with the child, and the social life of a student at early stages, determine the future of their education. This paper offers an eye-opener in the form of useful evidence and arguments that can lead parents and guardians in choosing a school. One will get to make an informed decision.
Counter Argument
There are parents and education experts who feel that mixed gender schools are the best and should be embraced. They believe that mixed gender schools offer quality to education and are good for student development as well as the well-being of the education system. Firstly, a mixed-gender offers students access to diversity. Dale (2017) opines that a mixed-gender school puts students in an environment of people who look and think differently from them. This subsequently helps in improving the personal progress of students. Having access to the diverse company at an early age for students enables them to adapt to future changes and conditions of life.
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Apart from that, mixed-gender schools offer the education system with the opportunity to bridge the gap of equality. Achieving gender equality is one of the Millennium Development goals, which were set to be achieved by the year 2030 (Wysokinska 2017). Efforts have been made to achieve equal opportunities for women as men, including equal suffrage rights for women. Mixed-gender schools offer equal opportunities to the boy child and the girl child alike. Specifically, students in such schools receive equal treatment, and students are not judged on preconceived notions of society. Experts believe that a society that encourages mixed-gender schooling get to empower children to embrace gender equality at lower ages. Additionally, mixed-gender schools are good because they help kill gender stereotypes, thus promoting equality among both genders.
Mixed-gender schools promote socialization opportunities for children to socialize better. Unlike students who study in single-sex schools, experts believe that mixed gender school gives students the ease of interacting with children of the opposite sex after they graduate. At mixed-gender schools, children learn to interact with their friends of the opposite gender early enough. Such opportunities allow the students to have an easy time in their future lives when they graduate, get college admissions, and get to career opportunities. At the colleges and places of work, a student has no choice rather than working with the same gender. A student with a history of interaction with counterparts of the opposite gender will find it easy to socialize in their future lives.
Teachers, education stakeholders, and other experts also believe that mixed gender schools prepare students better for the real world. An average person in the real world gets to meet and interact with people from diverse gender and character. However, one needs to understand the existing differentials to have healthy relationships with people of the opposite sex. Sociology experts suggest that one need to know people of the opposite gender early enough to help understand them because they are part of the real world. Specifically, mixed-gender schools allow students to learn how people in the opposite gender perceive things and how they handle specific things. On top of that, mixed-gender schools allow the students to learn specific issues and challenges people of the opposite sex encounter as well as how to help solve them. That way, they learn how to live in real life. On top of that, students from mixed-gender schools enable students to work on the success and failures of their peers and hence prepare them for their film festival.
Mixed-gender schools promote student’s communication skills as a way of preparing them for their careers. People get the challenge of communicating with strangers when they enter new environments in colleges and places of work. The challenge is always worse when the stranger is of the opposite sex (Grard et al., 2018). Nevertheless, students who go through mixed-gender schools grow up with good communication skills. Such students generally grow up with confidence among people of the opposite gender because their education life involves opposite gender interaction. Moreover, mixed-gender schools promote the growth of communication skills by creating face-to-face situations through games and inter-gender debates. That way, they help prepare students to communicate. Importantly, mixed-gender schools help delete any justification for sexism. In most job markets, women tend to complain of gender-based discrimination at their places of work. A few men also have experienced certain challenges in their respective workplaces. Mixed-gender schools help prepare students to work with each other from their initial days; that way, everybody learns to work together. With the knowledge of working together and the background of mixed-gender schools, one has no excuse for discriminating on others.
Refutation
Unfortunately, there are people in the education sector who do not subscribe to the idea of mixed-gender schools being better. These people who also include research experts, parents, team achers, and several education stakeholders believe that it is better to take students to single-gender schools over mixed-gender schools. People of this particular school of thought believe that mixed gender schools go against the traditional roles of men and women as they were defined in the old days. People who subscribe to this idea believe that traditional norms are still useful in society and should be upheld. This includes the various roles and responsibilities of men differently from women. Mixed-gender schools, however, train students to be universal and perform duties as students generally. This way, the people who oppose mixed-gender schools believe that conflict can be created by engaging students in roles that are meant for their opposite gender, conflicts arising from the custodians of tradition who are also education stakeholders.
Further to that, the opposers of this idea believe that mixed gender schools create sexual distractions for students in school. Combining young boys and girls during their lower grades is very good for expanding the students' opportunities for learning. Nevertheless, students become sexually active when they reach adolescence. At that stage in their life, the difference in gender offers a distraction to their studies. Frye (2017) opines that the adolescent stage is the point where students develop an intimate attraction towards their counterparts of the opposite sex, engage in relationships to engage in sexual activities. This kind of attractions towards each other in schools tends to distract students from learning and conducting their classwork. This can reduce the performance of such students in class and their co-curricular activities. On the same point of distraction against education, students in mixed-gender schools stand higher risks of experiencing gender discrimination, bullying, and psychological torture as a result of reduced self-esteem. Students in mixed-gender schools at adolescent are most likely to develop reduced self-esteem and lack of confidence to socialize with the opposite gender. Such forms of torture offer an additional distraction to students at these schools and may affect their academic performances negatively.
People who subscribe to this school of thought always express their fear of the risks of students engaging in early sexual activities at early ages. Every country has a legal age for sex, which is between 18 and 21 years in most countries. On that note, the law does not warrant sexual activities for persons below the age. Nevertheless, mixed-gender schools are believed to put students into the risks of having inter-gender intimate relationships and later engaging in sex (Jain et al., 2018). This is in addition to the intimate attraction that they have. Due to the same attraction, these students are tempted because they spend their days in class and outside classrooms in interacting with people of the opposite gender. This promotes the temptation of trying out sex after the said attraction among them.
Conclusion
From both sides of this argument, one can pick valid reasons to decide their stance on this current debate. It can be noted that mixed gender schools have both its good and bad sides. Specifically, both sides affect the quality of education either positively or negatively. Additionally, the disadvantage and advantages of mixed-gender schools also pose direct effects to the individual academic growth of students who go to such schools and hence making parents and guardians make choices. From the above arguments, one can see clearly that the advantages of mixed-gender schools surpass the disadvantages. Therefore, one can confidently say that mixed gender schools are resources to better and quality education.
References
Dale, R. R. (2017). Mixed or Single-sex School? Volume 3: Attainment, Attitudes, and Overview . Routledge.
Frye, M. (2017). Cultural meanings and the aggregation of actions: The case of sex and schooling in Malawi. American sociological review , 82 (5), 945-976.
Grard, A., Kunst, A., Kuipers, M., Richter, M., Rimpela, A., Federico, B., & Lorant, V. (2018). Same-sex friendship, school gender composition, and substance use: a social network study of 50 European schools. Substance use & misuse , 53 (6), 998-1007.
Jain, K., Sharma, S., Prajna, S. C., & Jain, V. (2018). Influences of gender, religion, dietary patterns, and mixed-sex education on aggressiveness in children: a sociodemographic study in municipal primary schools of South Delhi. Indian journal of public health , 62 (1), 21.
Wysokińska, Z. (2017). Millennium development goals/UN and sustainable development goals/UN as instruments for realizing sustainable development concept in the global economy. Comparative Economic Research , 20 (1), 101-118.
