A Word for Segregation in the Schools

I have said before and will say again that all social science is suspect, and no teaching method can clearly be shown by experiment to be better than another. People are too complex.

But as social studies go, here’s one that has produced the clearest results I have ever seen. The sheer numerical spread goes some way to erasing doubt—though I’d like to see it repeated elsewhere. At Woodward Elementary School, in Florida, they randomly assigned kids to either co-ed or sex-segregated classrooms. Then they compared how they did on the standardized state test. In co-ed classes, 37% of boys and 59 percent of girls scored “proficient.” In segregated classrooms, 86% of boys and 75% of girls scored proficient. Same school, same curriculum.

It would seem very much as though teaching boys and girls together harms both significantly.

The way it seems to work is that the students spontaneously arrive at a division of labour by sex. The girls do all the language stuff, while the boys tune out. The boys do all the math, while the girls tune out; and so forth.

It may be that this tendency to divide labour is hardwired in us.

It ought to be, for the sake of social harmony and, indeed, equality. Men and women are hardwired to be complementary, and to help one another.